WOOD CHARCOAL — ITS MANUFACTURE AND USE. I 3 



produces about eight tons per day of cold blast ' Lorn ' charcoal 

 pig-iron. This iron is expensive to manufacture, and is the 

 dearest on the market, but in spite of the cost of manufacture 

 it has a ready sale, and is despatched to all corners of the world. 

 It goes to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Europe, and 

 is very largely used in the United States, where it is mixed 

 with other irons to make malleable castings. 



" Charcoal iron is made very extensively in Sweden and in 

 Russia. The Swedish particularly is sold in Great Britain, and 

 competes to a certain extent with the ' Lorn ' charcoal pig-iron ; 

 but for special manufacture the 'Lorn' iron, though it is more 

 expensive, holds its own, as it has peculiar properties which 

 the Swedish and Russian charcoal irons do not possess. This 

 is accounted for by the different class of iron ore used to make 

 ' Lorn ' iron as against Swedish and Russian iron. The ore used 

 for the manufacture of ' Lorn ' iron is specially selected from 

 the hematite mines situated at Lindal Moor in the Furness dis- 

 trict, and the secret of the specially peculiar properties of the 

 ' Lorn ' iron is the use of special ore which can only be had from 

 these mines. For many years the manufacture of the 'Lorn' 

 brand of charcoal pig-iron was intermittent, and a great deal 

 of the market was lost at the time owing to the irregular manu- 

 facture of same, the various users of our * Lorn ' iron being 

 unable to depend on receiving their requirements. This was 

 due to short supplies of charcoal. At that time the furnace was 

 entirely dependent on charcoal produced in Great Britain, the 

 chief source of supply being what was termed country charcoal, 

 viz. : charcoal burnt in kilns in the coppices in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the furnace. For a radius of thirty and more 

 miles from the furnace it has been the practice of landowners 

 to grow coppice wood specially for the manufacture of charcoal, 

 for which there was always a ready sale to the Backbarrow 

 furnace, and coppice wood is still grown throughout the English 

 lake district, in which the furnace is situated, for this purpose ; 

 but as time went on fewer coppices were grown, so that there 

 came a time when the local supplies were insufficient for the 

 requirements of the furnace, and to augment it chemical char- 

 coal was bought, and all surplus chemical charcoal on the 

 British market was sold to the Backbarrow furnace. Even this 

 was not sufficient to keep the furnace going for more than four 

 to six months per year. There being an increasing demand for 



