406 On the Oi'tgin of the Blast Furnace. 



England were possessed of two blast furnaces in tlie Forest 

 of Dean, where the cord wood of the forest and the king's 

 share of the mines were used for the purpose of iron-making. 

 Soon after the connnencement of the struggle between Charles 

 the First and his Parliament, these furnaces ceased work- 

 ing, and at no period since have they been in blast. About 

 fourteen years ago, 1 first saw the ruins of one of these 

 furnaces situated below York Lodge, and surromided by a 

 large heap of the slag or scoria that is pi'oduced in making 

 pig-iron. As the situation of this furnace was remote from 

 roads, and must at one time have been deemed nearly inac- 

 cessible, it had all the appeai'ance at the time of my survey 

 of having remained in the same state for nearly two centuries: 

 there existed no trace of any sort of machinery ; which ren- 

 dered it highly probable that no part of the slags had been 

 ground (the usual practice) and carried oftj but that the en- 

 tire produce of the furnace in slags remained undisturbed. 



The quantity I computed at from 8 to 10,000 tons; a quan- 

 tity which, however great it may appear for the minor opera- 

 tions of an early period, would yet in our times be produced 

 from a coke furnace in less than two years. If It is assumed 

 that this furnace made upon an average annually 200 tons of 

 pig-iron ; and further, assuming the result which has been ob- 

 tained with ores richer than the Roman cinders, and ores used 

 at that time in Dean Forest, — that the quantity of slag ran fi'om 

 the furnace was equal to one half the quantit}' of iron made 

 (in modern times the quantity of cinder from the coke furnace 

 is double the weight of the iron), we shall have one hundred 

 tons of cinders annually, for a period of from 80 to 100 years. 

 If the abandonment of this furnace took place about the year 

 16 to, the commencement of its smeltings must be assigned to 

 a period between the years 1540 and 1560. If 1550 be adopted 

 as the probable mean, it would from this solitary calculation 

 appear, that pig-iron was made from the blast furnace in En- 

 gland before it was known to Agricola, whose work seems to 

 nave been first printed in 1 5oQ. 



There does not appear from this to be sufficient grounds to 

 suppose that the blast furnace was known in Gloucestershire, 

 or in the adjoining counties, earlier than the middle of the six- 

 teenth century. The local history of Tintern Abbey assigns 

 a later period (the early years of the reign of James the First) 

 for the erection of that furnace. The opportunity afforded of 

 examining both the slags and the iron produced in that early 

 period, abundandy proves that the furnace in Dean Forest 

 above mentioned was one of tlie earliest efforts in the art of 

 making pig-iron. Small masses or shots of iron are found 



enveloped 



