CORT. 153 



have realized considerable profits. v While conducting this business 

 Cort became aware of the inferiority of British iron in comparison 

 with that of foreign countries, and entered on a series of experiments 

 with the object of improving its manufacture. In 1775 he relin- 

 quished his business as a navy agent and took a lease of some 

 premises at Fonltey, near Fareham, where he erected a forge and 

 an iron-mill. He afterwards took into partnership Samuel Jellicoe, 

 son of Adam Jellicoe, then deputy-paymaster of seamen's wages, a 

 connection which ultimately proved the cause of all Cort's subse- 

 quent misfortunes. Ford in 1747, Dr. Koebuck in 1762, the brothers 

 Cranege in 1766, and Peter Onions, of Merthyr Tydvil, in 1783, had 

 all introduced valuable additions to the then known processes of iron 

 manufacture. In 1783-4 Cort took out his two patents which, while 

 combining the inventions of his predecessors, specified so many 

 valuable improvements of an original character, that they estab- 

 lished a new era in the history of iron manufacture, and raised it to 

 the highest state of prosperity. Mr. Truran,* in speaking of Cort, 

 remarks " The mode of piling iron to form large pieces, as described 

 in his inventions, is the one at use in the present day." " The me- 

 thod of puddling iron now in use is the same as that patented by 

 Henry Cort. There has been no essential departure from his pro- 

 cess. Iron bottoms have been substituted for sand and by building 

 the furnace somewhat larger, a second charge of cast-iron is intro- 

 duced and partially heated during the finishing operations in the 

 first, as conducted at the present day. All that has been done in 

 the last seventy-three years has been in the way of adding to and 

 perfecting Cort's furnaces, as experience has from time to time 

 suggested." Cort's method of passing the piled wedged-shaped 

 bars of iron through grooved rollers has been spoken of by another 

 competent authority as of " high philosophical interest, being 

 scarcely less than the discovery of a new mechanical power in 

 reversing the action of the wedge, by the application of force to 

 four surfaces so as to elongate the mass instead of applying force to 

 a mass to divide the four surfaces." The principal iron masters 

 soon heard of the success of Cort's new inventions, and visited his 

 foundry for the purpose of examining his process, and of employing 

 it at their own works if satisfied with the result. Among the first 

 to try it were Richard Crawshaw of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of 

 Penydarran (both in South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coal- 

 brookdale. The two first-named at once entered into a contract to 

 work under Cort's patents at 105. a ton royalty ; and the quality of 

 the iron manufactured by the new process was found to be so supe- 

 rior to other kinds, that the Admiralty directed it, in 1787, to be 

 used for the anchors and other iron-work in the ships of the Royal 

 Navy. The merits of the invention were now generally conceded, 



* Mechanics' Magazine, vol. v. (new series), page 276. 



