'?dincraloglcal Journey, 135 



eraiions of ilie trip hammer shop and mills, farming, &;c. Their fur- 

 nace, ^Vhich is like those employed in the great iron mines of Swe- 

 den, ;s thirty feet in height, of an ovoidal form, and furnished with a 

 powerful cylindrical machine for giving the blast. It is lined with a 

 white granite from LandafF, composed principally of felspar, which 

 the iron master assured us, formed a very durable and excellent lining. 

 The furnace was heating up at the time of our visit for an opera- 

 tion to last eighteen weeks. 



Captain Putnam, the enterprising agent of this establishment, in- 

 formed us, that their manufactures for the last nine years had annu- 

 ally averaged forty tons of bar iron, and two hundred and sixteen tons 

 of cast iron, in hollow ware, stoves, machinery and pig iron ; widi the 

 yearly consumption of two hundred thousand bushels of charcoal, 

 which costs them ^3 75 per one hundred bushels. But in conse- 

 quence of considerable improvements in their works which were 

 just completed, they were beginning to manufacture at the rate of 

 two hundred tons of bar iron, and from three hundred to three hun- 

 dred and fifty tons of cast iron, annually. 



The upper works are, at present, individual property ; being owned 

 and superintended by Mr. J. Richardson. He manufactures bar 

 Iron only; and produces one hundred tons, annually. This gentle- 

 man does not employ the high furnace for the reduction of his ore ; 

 but the more simple apparatus of the Catalan forge ; which although 

 it requires more charcoal, yet yields excellent wrought iron, and re- 

 quires comparatively but a moderate capital. The ore after a slight 

 roasting, and reduction in the crushing mill, is thrown, every few min- 

 utes by the shovel full (without any flux) upon the burning charcoal 

 of the forge hearth, to which the blast is given from a common leath- 

 ern bellows. When a loup, or cake of sufficient size has been accu- 

 mulated in the basin of the forge, it is wididrawn, put under the ham- 

 mer and forged at once. Thus, both the forge and furnace ope- 

 rations are united in one. These works consume seventy thousand 

 bushels of coal annually, at an expense of four dollars the one hun- 

 dred bushels 5 and furnish employment for twenty men. 



Considerable expectation was awake, at the time of our visit at 

 Franconia, respecting the discovery of fossil coal, said to exist twelve 

 miles distant, in the town of Bath. From a specimen of it, present- 

 ed to us by Mr. Richardson, it was extremely obvious, that it was 

 the anthracite ; and in its characters resembled closely the vari- 

 ety found at Worcester and Rhode Island, though, apparently, of an 



