% 



160 [Assembly 



anxiety at our next Fair, for improved specimens in this exceedingly 

 important branch of manufactures. 



We intended to have mentioned before, and we have the fact from 

 the most undoubted authority, that in the northern part of Portugal 

 a large quantity of excellent flax is annually produced, which is spun 

 and manufactured, in the old fashioned way, into a variety of articles, 

 which find a ready market in Brazil. 



IRON. 



Every improvement in the conversion of iron, from the ore to a 

 malleable state, by which its cfist is reduced, is of immense importance, 

 and entitled to the highest award. The specimens of iron, made by 

 a new process, invented by Mr. S. S. Salters, and now in operation at 

 Boonton, N. J., were considered by judges to be of good quality. 

 The whole process, from the ore to malleable iron, is conducted in a 

 single furnace, with anthracite coal. The furnace contains three 

 chambers, one above the other, the lower one being reverberatory. 

 The ore is pulverised, and also the coal, and these mixed together 

 are placed in the upper chamber of this furnace, where they undergo 

 a process of baking, by which the gases are disengaged and driven 

 off. The mass is then passed down the flue of the furnace to the 

 middle chamber, where the fluxing materials are added. In these 

 two chambers the ore is thoroughly deoxidised and prepared for the 

 puddling chamber, to which it is conducted through the flue, as be- 

 fore, where the process is completed. It is stated that the time con- 

 sumed in conducting the operation does not exceed two hours. The 

 friends of this work, and those immediately interested in the experi- 

 ment, are sanguine in their expectations of success. 



It appears that a patent was granted to Mr. W. N. Clay, in Eng- 

 land, 1840, for a mixture of 28 per cent of carbonaceous matter 

 with ground iron ore, containing 45 per cent of metal, which mixture 

 was to be directly treated in a puddhng furnace. We have no 

 knowledge of the result of this process. 



