IRON MANUFACTURE AND TRADE. 



IRRADIATION. 



operation*. He selected the preceding year, 1854, to show actual 

 Instead of potential results ; and he found them as follows : 



1854. 



Funuees In blut 

 Weekly versft per farnacc . 

 Mf -iron msnufosturtd . 



S99 

 1181 



J,iSJ,900 



In the 16 Tears from 1839 to 1854, the furnaces in blast had increased 

 from 379 to 599 ; the weekly average produce per furnace from 63 to 

 118 tons; and the total produce from (about) 1,250,000 tons to 

 3,590,000 _tons very nearly three-fold. To produce these 3,590,000 

 i estimates that there were required 



tons, Mr. Truran i 



CUr Ironstone . . 

 Carboniferous Ironstone 

 SUkcooi Ironstone . 

 Hirmmtltr ironstone . 

 Limestone si a flux . 

 Coal as (nel . . . 



7,366,000 tons 

 S,84i,000 



980,000 



555,000 



2,450,000 



20,046,000 



34,842,000 



Or, nearly 10 tons of crude material to make 1 ton of iron ; but there 

 seems to be included here, not only the coal for actual smelting, but 

 also that for refining, casting, forging, &c. Almost as much coal is 

 needed for converting pig-iron into malleable as for smelting from 

 the ore. It is necessary to bear in mind that, for this same year 1854, 

 Mr. Blackwell gave an estimate much below Mr. Truran's in the 

 quantity of iron made, and still further below in the quantity of coal 

 used ; but the grounds for his estimate were not so fully stated. Mr. 

 Blackwell allows 3 tons of coal for smelting 1 ton of iron, and 3 tons 

 for converting 1 ton of pig iron into malleable. 



Mention has more than once been made, in the foregoing paragraphs, 

 of the vast Dowlais Works. No better example could be selected to 

 illustrate the general character of all such establishments. More than 

 a hundred years ago, the Earl of Windsor granted a lease of a portion 

 of ground near (what was at that time) the small agricultural .village of 

 Merthyr Tydvil, on the confines of the counties of Glamorgan, Mon- 

 inouth , and Brecknock ; with a right to use the coal, iron, and limestone 

 found beneath the surface. On this ground was erected a blast-furnace, 

 which became the pattern or model for many others. On account 

 partly of the smaUness of the furnace, but still more of the imperfection 

 of the smelting operations, the weekly yield of pig-iron per furnace 

 was small. Forty years after the establishment of the works it was 

 only 20 tons ; by the year 1800 it had risen to 36 ; and taking succes- 

 sive intervals of ten years, it appears that the weekly yield per furnace 

 was 50 tons in 1810, 62 in 1820, 78 in 1830, 88 in 1840, 102 in 1850; 

 while the details already given show how probable it is that the yield 

 will be vastly greater in 1860. Not only did the yield per furnace 

 increase in this way, but the number of furnaces also underwent many 

 augmentations. At the beginning of the present century there were 3, 

 4 in 1815, 8 in 1820, 12 in 1826, 18 at present ; these being all Uaxt- 

 furnaces, irrespective of a much greater number of calcining, puddling, 

 refining, founding, and other furnaces. Very early in the operations a 

 Mr. Quest was one of the partners ; and in the course of time his 

 successors became sole owners of the vast property. The late Sir John 

 Ouet was a remarkable man : he learned practically all the operations 

 of iron-making, from beginning to end ; he made himself acquainted 

 with the Welsh language, in order to become intimate with his work- 

 people; and even when he possessed a residence of almost feudal 

 magnificence at Morlaia Castle, and had married a peer's daughter, his 

 heart was still among the smoke and din of the works. Dowlais made 

 10,000 tons of pig-iron in 1810; whereas, in 1849, it made 100,000 

 tons. In 1 852 it was calculated that the various furnaces and operations 

 employed 5000 horse-power of steam-engines ; that there were raised 

 2,000,000 tons of minerals from the ground beneath the estate, of 

 which 800,000 tons consisted of ironstone, limestone, and coal, actually 

 thrown into the furnaces ; that a $hip a day was freighted at Cardiff, 

 on an average, with iron brought down from Dowlais by the Taff Vale 

 railway and the Glamorganshire canal ; that 10,0002. a week was paid 

 in wages, the mere procuring of which by the appointed day, in coin, 

 was a financial operation of no small magnitude ; and that 7000 persons 

 were employed at direct pay, who of course supported many thousands 

 more at home. Some of the machinery is of the largest kind ever 

 employed in iron-works. In 1857 there was a steam-engine powerful 

 enough to blow the blast for six of the greatest furnaces ; it had a 

 beam of 40 tons, and a fly-wheel of 35 tons. The rolling-mill had a 

 fly-wheel 21 feet in diameter, and a driving-wheel still larger. The 

 rail-mill was capable of making 1000 tons of railway bars per week. 

 Ever since the rise of the railway system, Dowlais has been famed for 

 its railway bars more than for its castings ; when it made 100,000 tons 

 of iron per annum, three-fourths were sent from the works in the form 

 of bars and rails. It is at night that the works should be seen, when 

 all the furnaces are vomiting forth their flames high into the air, 

 throwing around a lurid smoky light of extraordinary character. Most 

 of the blast-furnaces are ranged in a semicircle, on the outside of 

 which have gradually accumulated millions of tons of slag and rubbish ; 

 this slag, hot within long after it has become cool on the 



occasionally cracks, and exhibits waving lines of red fire, bearing more 

 resemblance to a volcano than anything else to be seen in this country. 

 These vast heaps of rubbish are gradually filling up valley*, for 

 is no where else to place them ; and portions of the upper section of 

 the Taff Vale railway are laid on the slag itself, smoothed and graduated 

 For the purpose. Within the works, noise, smoke, and heat are the 

 three characteristics which overbear all others, and which leave an 

 impression on the mind of a visitor not readily effaced. 



IRON BOATS AND SHIPS. [Smp.Bun.Dixu.] 



IRON BRIDGES. [BRIDGES.] 



IRONY (ttpunia.), a refined species of ridicule, which under the 

 juise of earnestness and simplicity exposes all undue pretensions, 

 even while it professes to honour and admit them. It stands inter- 

 mediate between naivete", or frank simplicity, on the one hand, and 

 banter and persiflage, on the other. From the former it is distin- 

 guished by the consciousness and intention of ridicule, which object 

 again in more covert and less transparent in irony than in the latter. 

 By Aristotle the ironical is opposed to the boastful (r$ AAofon), and 

 as a middle term between the tux> he places the truthful cruf iAqftj). 

 The Latins translated the word irony by " dissimulatio,' which however 

 Quintilian (lib. ix., c. 2) disapproves of as very inadequate, and pre- 

 ferred the original, for which we are indebted to the refinement of the 

 Athenians, among whom Socrates, the master in this art, was called 

 emphatically the Ironical (6 ripuv). The strict etymology of the term 

 is very doubtful. One explanation, looking to the so-called Socratic 

 method of question and answer, takes it to mean simply " the inter- 

 rogator ; " while another would derive it from dpciv, to fasten, which 

 may have had reference to the skill wherewith Socrates reduced the 

 sophists to the necessity of adopting some fixed and stable point for 

 discussion, instead of loose and slippery declamation, which, as more 

 favourable to delusion and fallacy, they preferred. Both explanations 

 equally leave out of consideration that element of latent mockery 

 which predominates in the modern acceptation of the word, but wUofi 

 was probably only accessory to the original idea. For while the 

 serious object of the Socratic irony, in which he represented himself as 

 desirous to learn of those whose claim to wisdom he laboured to expose, 

 was to awaken reflection by the development of the consciousness, he 

 nevertheless combined with it all the Attic urbanity and wit. It was 

 consequently of two kinds, a finer and a grosser, according as he had 

 to do with the more presumptuous arrogance of the sophists, whew 

 undue and pernicious reputation he sought to subvert, or with those 

 younger but not less conceited spirits, who yet sought his socit 

 the sake of benefit and improvement, and therefore required a milder 

 and more merciful treatment. 



The ironical argument proceeds in simulated ignorance, and by 

 appearing to agree with those whom its purpose is to refute, in holding 

 certain erroneous opinions and maxims, brings out the antagonism of 

 truth to error, and gradually involves them in inextricable difficulties. 

 On this account it lias been considered a species of apogogical argument 

 (nit its aSvyaTOf iwaywyris), or reductio ad absurdum. 



As a figure of rhetoric, it is correctly defined to be that mode in 

 which our words convey a sense directly contrary to what we express, 

 but agreeable to what we mean and are understood to mean. (Beattie, 

 ' Moral Science,' c. i. 1, p. 4.) In an opposite and somewhat extended 

 sense those mistakes have been called ironical wherein our intended 

 expressions receive an inverted signification. 



Since the essence of irony consists in its serious and seeming sim- 

 plicity, it is essential to its successful application that it should a. I 

 gradually to its ultimate object of exposure, and neither lose it* . 

 character by rising too suddenly to exaggeration and extremes, nor yet 

 so closely veil itself but that the intention of ridicule may 

 through the assumed mask of earnestness and simplicity. 



Of English writers Swift contains the strongest and the most 

 numerous examples of irony. 



IROQUOIS. [NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.] 



IRRADIATION denotes, properly, the emission of rays from a 

 luminous object, but the word is generally used to signify an apparent 

 enlargement of the disc of a celestial body: this enlargement 1 ..!!,_ 

 caused either by a deviation of the rays of light from a reel 

 direction, or by some illusion arising from the action of light on 

 the eye. 



\VIien rays of light from points at the surface of an object fall on 

 the retina, there may be produced On the latter on agitation ext. 

 within short distances about the points to which the rays in the pen- 

 cils are made to converge by the humours of the eye : hence there 

 may arise a perception of a fringe or border about a luminous l..,,K, 

 and consequently an apparent enlargement of such body. Thus, the 

 image of a star, when seen by the eye, appears to be a disc of sensible 

 magnitude, instead of a mere point ; which, on account of its remote- 

 ness, would be the case if the rays of each pencil produced no effect 

 beyond their mathematical point of convergence : the disc of the sun 

 or of the moon is conceived to be, in like manner, apparently enlarged; 

 and thus, also, the part of the moon which, when the latter is new is 

 enli -litfiied by the sun, appears to be a pm-lion of a sphere of greater 

 diameter than the part which is more faintly enlightened by the rays 

 reflected from the earth. 



A species of irradiation is caused by the blending together, upon the 

 retina, of the eircles of light produced by the pencils which fail upon 



