44 [Assembly 
termed, after which it is brought under heavy hammers and form- 
ed into bars of various sizes and forms. When a peculiar ore, as 
the spathic iron, is employed, the product of this process is an in- 
ferior kind of steel. 
This forge has justly been styled the most humble and probably 
the oldest workshop of iron, and was formerly in general use 
where the ores were sufficiently pure to admit of its employment. 
As it could be erected at a trifling expense, it enabled the small 
capitalist to prosecute the manufacture in situations where fuel was 
abundant, and it often employed the farmer in the intervals of 
agricultural labor. These are perhaps the principal reasons why 
the forge is so generally employed in the northern part of the 
State. But I think it may be safely affirmed, that its employment 
is wasteful, and as fuel becomes less abundant and capital increases, 
it must give place to the improved furnace.^ 
It is evident from the description of the process which has just 
been given, that the conversion of the cast iron into malleable iron 
in the open forge, takes place during the free exposure of the for- 
mer to heat and air in contact with the combustible. There must, 
however, be great waste both of fuel and of ore. Facts prove the 
correctness of this assertion. I was informed by an intelligent 
manufacturer in Clinton county, that three tons of the best ore, 
such as that from the Arnold mine, are required for producing one 
ton of malleable iron, and that five hours was the average time 
consumed in carrying the ore to the state of rough bar, one hun- 
dred and fifty pounds being the usual weight of the hup. Now 
analysis shows that the Arnold ore contains about 72 per cent of me- 
tallic iron, and although great allowance is to be made for the waste 
necessarily attendant upon metallurgic processes, we may fairly 
conclude that when it amounts, as it does in the present case, to 
fifty per cent, there must be some defect in the process of reduction. 
The clay iron stone so extensively used in Great Britain, seldom 
contains more than thirty-five per cent of metallic iron, and yet it 
is stated, that three tons of this ore yield about one ton of cast 
iron, and this last again loses about ten or twelve per cent of its 
weight by conversion into refined iron, so that about three and a 
half tons of the ore yield a ton of refined iron. The difference 
will be more apparent from the following statement. 
* See Col. Gibbs' observations on the iron works at Vergennes, Vermont, in Bruce's 
American Mineralogical Journal, p. 80. 
