Ixii REPORT — 1861. 



inventors, and his improvements have contributed to the rapid extension of 

 this manufacture. 



I might greatly extend this description of our manufacturing industry, 

 but 1 must for the present be brief, in order to point out the dependence of 

 all these improvements on the iron and coal so widely distributed amongst 

 the mineral treasures of our island. We are highly favoured in the abun- 

 dance of these minerals, deposited with an unsparing hand by the great 

 Author of nature, under so slight a covering as to bring them within reach 

 of the miner's art. To them we owe our present high state of perfection in 

 the useful arts ; and to their extended application we may safely attribute 

 our national progress and wealth. So that, looking to the many blessings 

 which we daily and hourly receive from these sources alone, we are impressed 

 with devotional feelings of gratitude to the Almighty for the manifold 

 bounties He has bestowed upon us. 



Previously to the inventions of Henry Cort, the manufacture of wrought 

 iron was of the most crude and primitive description. A hearth and a pair 

 of bellows was all that was employed. But since the introduction of 

 puddling, the iron-masters have increased the production to an extraordinary 

 extent, down to the present time, when processes for the direct conversion 

 of wrought iron on a large scale are being attempted. A consecutive series 

 of chemical researches into the different processes, from the calcining of the 

 ore to the production of the bar, carried on by Dr. Percy and others, has led 

 to a revolution in the manufacture of iron ; and although it is at the present 

 moment in a state of transition, it nevertheless requires no very great dis- 

 cernment to perceive that steel and iron of any required tenacity will be 

 made in the same furnace, with a facility and certainty never before attained. 

 This has been effected, to some extent, by improvements in puddling; but 

 the process of Mr. Bessemer, first made known at the meetings of this 

 Association at Cheltenham, affords the highest promise of certainty and 

 perfection in the operation of converting the melted pig direct into steel or 

 iron, and is likely to lead to the most important developments in this manu- 

 facture. These improvements in the production of the material must, in 

 their turn, stimulate its application on a larger scale and lead to new con- 

 structions. 



In iron shipbuilding, an immense field is open before us. Our wooden 

 walls have, to all appearance, seen their last days ; and as one of the early 

 pioneers in iron construction, as applied to shipbuilding, I am highly gratified 

 to witness a change of opinion that augurs well for the security of the 

 liberties of the country. From the commencement of iron shipbuilding in 

 1830 to the present time, there could be only one opinion amongst those 

 best acquainted with the subject, namely, that iron must eventually supersede 

 timber in every form of naval construction. The large ocean steamers, the 

 ' Himalaya,' the ' Persia,' and the ' Great Eastern,' abundantly show what 

 can be done with iron ; and we have only to look at the new system of casing 

 ships with armour-plates, to be convinced that we can no longer build 

 wooden vessels of war with safety to our naval superiority and the best 

 interests of the country. I give no opinion as to the details of the recon- 

 struction of the navj', — that is reserved for another place, — but I may state 

 that I am fully persuaded that the whole of our ships of war must be rebuilt 

 of iron, and defended with iron armour calculated to resist projectiles of the 

 heaviest description at high velocities. 



In the early stages of iron shipbuilding, I believe I was the first to show, 

 by a long series of experiments, the superiority of wrought iron over every 

 other description of material in security and strength, when judiciously 



