996 



IRON 



operation was impracticable until Henry Cort invented the furnace in which it could be 

 conducted. 



Neither Mr. Cort nor his family appears to h.ive derived much advantage from his 

 important discoveries discoveries which changed us at once from dependent import ITS 

 of iron into vast exporters to every country of the world, and which may bo considored 

 to have founded the iron industry of Groat Britain. So long ago as 1811, the chief 

 representatives of the trade assembled at Gloucester unanimously acknowledged their 

 indebtedness to Mr. Cort for the improvements of which he was the author, and this 

 acknowledgment has been repeated within the last few years by Robert Steptenson, 

 Fairbairn, Maudslay and Field, Cubitt, JRcndcl, Sir Charles Fox, Bidder, Crawshay, 

 Bailey, and many others. In working out his inventions, Cort is said to have expended 

 a fortune of 20.000Z., and when his patents were completed, the leading ironmasters 

 of the country contracted to pay him 10s. a ton for their use, so that he would not 

 only have been repaid, but munificently rewarded, had he not unfortunately connected 

 himself with a man named Adam Jellicoe, chief clerk of the Navy Pay Office, who 

 proving to be a defaulter, committed suicide, having previously destroyed the patents 

 and the agreements with ironmasters belonging to his partner, Henry Cort. Upon 

 the death of Jellicoe, the premises, stock, and entire effects of Cort were sold by a 

 summary process obtained by the Navy Pay Office, and the unfortunate man was thus 

 completely ruined. 



The puddling furnace is of the reverberatory form. It is bound generally with 

 iron, as represented in the side v'iQW,fig. 1257, by means of horizontal and vertical 



1257 r^ 



bars, which are joined together and fixed by wedges, to prevent them from starting 

 asunder. Very frequently, indeed, the reverberatory furnaces are armed witli cast- 

 iron plates over their whole surface. These are retained by upright bars of cast iron 



1258 



applied to the side walls, and by horizontal bars of iron, placed across the arch or 

 roof. The furnace itself is divided interiorly into three parts ; the fireplace, the hearth, 



