«|l4 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO \6Q3. 



charcoal, whereas formerly their fuel was only charcoal. They once tried pit- 

 coal, but with bad success. The small dusty part of the charcoal is useful for 

 burning the iron-stone ; for every 17 baskets of this burned stone, they put in 

 one of limestone unburned, to make it melt freely, and cast the cinder, which 

 they always take off from the melted iron with a coal-rake, at a hole in the 

 furnace-mouth, before they let the metal run. Nothing remains in the bottom 

 of the hearth, all becoming either iron or cinder. 



The furnace is built on the side of a hill, the bottom about '2 yards square, 

 and so rises perpendicular for a yard or more ; it is also lined within with a wall 

 of the best fire-stone, to keep off the force of the fire from the walls of the 

 furnace : the bellows, which are very large, and played with water, enter about 

 the middle of the focus ; the rest of the furnace is raised on this 6 or 7 yards 

 square-wise, but tapering : so that the sides draw towards each other by degrees : 

 and the top-hole, where they throw in baskets of stone and fuel, is but about ^ 

 a yard square. Into this place they put down a pole, to know how far it has 

 subsided after a certain time ; and when they find it to have sunk about a yard 

 and 4 they then put in more, till the furnace be full again. 



The furnace is much like a common blacksmith's forge, about a yard and -f 

 over, and of the same height ; the earth is all of sow-iron, much, of the shape 

 of a broad brimmed hat, with the crown downwards : this hollow place they 

 fill and heap up with charcoal, on which when it is kindled, they put ore, first 

 broken into pieces like a pigeon's egg, all round about the charcoal on the fiat 

 hearth, to bake or neal it; and they thrust it in by little and little, into the 

 hollow, where it is melted by the blast, which is continued for about r2 hours 

 feeding it still with new charcoal as it settles. Then they pull out a stopple at 

 the bottom of the wall, whence runs out all the gl^sy-cinder, which is very 

 liquid, leaving the iron in a lump at the bottom : this they take out with great 

 tongs, and put under heavy hammers, worked with water, by which after 

 several heatings, in the same furnace where it is melted, it is beaten into bars. 

 They get about a hundred weight of metal at one melting, which is the pro- 

 duct of about three times as much ore. They use no lime-stone, or any other 

 thing, to promote the flux. 



The ore is got in Fourness, at least 15 miles from Milthorp. Some of it is 

 hard, but feels soft and smooth on the outside, like velvet ; some of it again 

 is as soft as clay: but all of it is red, and lies in beds like coal. The several 

 sorts of ores lie in one vein or seam, which is sometimes an inch, sometimes a 

 foot, and sometimes 3 or 4 yards broad, and many fathoms deep, between grey 

 limestone rocks ; but the hard ores lie usually next the rocks on each side, 

 and the soft ore in the middle. They often use the soft ore, with good success, 



