96 Onthe Blast Furnace in the Manufacture of Iron. 
M. Ebelman states that the combustion of the gas passing from 
the mouth of the blast furnace is equal to from ;3, to ,°,4; of the 
calorific effect of the coal used, and MM. Bunsen and Playfair 
set it down as ,°,°,, which last 1am inclined to believe is rather 
too large a fraction ; they ene - the furnace worked with bi- 
tum 1, and Epainian h to one worked with char- 
coal. Without being able to decide exactly what portion of the 
combustible of the blast furnace is lost, it is sufficient to know 
that it is far greater than that consumed, to lead at once to the 
employment of means bringing into use this waste combustible. — 
The employment of the heat lost from the mouth of the blast 
furnace, for the purposes of metallurgy, &c., has been claimed by 
many as having been used by them since 1834. The following 
are some of the claimants :—MM. Thomas and Laures, (civil en- 
gineers); MM. d’Andelarre and de Lisa, (forge masters at 'T'reve- 
ray); M. le Marechal Marmont, (in Austria); M. Houzeau Mui- 
ren, (of Ardennes; and M. de Faber Dufaur, (of Wasseralfingen). 
All their claims of priority, however, ought to be laid aside, since 
the operation was performed many years prior to the time that 
any of them claim to have first employed the lost heat. And 
as a proof of this assertion, I give the following extract from the — 
Journal des Mines, Juin 1814.—‘M. Aubertot of the department 
of Cher, and owner of furnaces and other works in excellent con- 
dition and management, which he superintends personally, made, 
several years ago, a great many experiments to discover some 
means of economizing the amount of fuel used in the working 
of iron, either by endeavoring to introduce the operation by the 
catalan furnace, or otherwise. He was led to try what could be 
accomplished by making use of the flame which passed out of 
the blast and refining furnace. He first employed it for the ce- 
mentation of steel, in which he succeeded perfectly ; then he 
used it for calcining lime, also for burning bricks and tiles. Af- 
terwards he passed it into a reverberatory furnace, in which the 
temperature was raised sufficiently to heat the blooms and bars, 
for hammering the one and drawing the other out. Finally he 
succeeded in producing all the above effects at one and the same 
time, by ysis the flame to circulate through several furnaces. 
side by side.” 
In 1834, M. Houzeau Muiren took out a patent for using the 
waste heat from the mouth of the blast furnace, for carbonizing 
