14 JRANSACIIONS OK KOVAI, SCOTTISH ARBORICUI.TURAI, SOCIETY. 



the ' Lorn ' brand of iron other sources of charcoal had to be 

 found, and we are now importing charcoal very largely from 

 the Continent, it being found that the best chemical charcoal 

 could be delivered at our furnace from abroad at prices equal 

 to and even less than the chemical charcoal manufacturers in 

 this country insisted that they required to make their business 

 pay. To make our iron, wood charcoal is absolutely essential, 

 just as much so as the special ore used, but the writer is strongly 

 of opinion that there is no room for the increased manufacture 

 of charcoal pig-iron in this country. We have plenty of ore, 

 but as already pointed out there is an insufficiency of charcoal, 

 and further there is a limited demand for the iron owing to 

 its high cost. Swedes make and export ordinary charcoal pig- 

 iron in very large quantities, and they can afford, owing to their 

 being able to procure cheap charcoal, to undersell any iron 

 which could be manufactured in this country ; and if it were not 

 that we manufacture a charcoal pig-iron which they cannot 

 copy, owing to their being unable to secure the ore, the Back- 

 barrow furnace would not pay to work." 



In America the output of charcoal iron is enormous owing to 

 the vast amount of cheap wood and the furnaces carbonising it 

 for themselves and recovering the products. Many works also 

 are situated in the natural gas belt which enables their fuel 

 costs, always a serious item, to be cut down to the lowest point. 

 A large outlet for charcoal iron, even after steel had been long 

 introduced, was in the tinplate trade in Wales, but it has had 

 to give way there also to steel under the stress of competition 

 though it has still its uses there. 



I have tried in the foregoing to give some idea of the rise 

 of the manufacture of wood charcoal from small beginnings to 

 its present immense proportion consuming thousands of tons 

 of trees per day, and its position in this country to-day. Char- 

 coal in any shape or size may be used (or gunpowder or blacking, 

 but it requires to be in good-sized lumps for burning purposes, 

 and this requirement has led to the necessity for finding an 

 outlet for the smalls and dust caused by the breaking down of 

 the charcoal in the retorts and in transit. .Such an outlet has 

 been found in charcoal briquettes, such as are now extensively 

 used in Dalli irons and carbotron stoves. Owing to the 

 method of manufacture the charcoal is generally re-carbon i.sed, 

 and at a higher heat, and is therefore slower burning, and, if 



