earthy parts are burnt out and nearly consumed, and that 
the metaliic parts only remain, destroyed however in their 
nature and reduced to a cinder . 
We are not to wonder, therefore, at the uncertain re- 
sults which the untutored manufacturer obtains, until such 
time as a long course of e perience has taught him, that, 
by combining certain causes, good or bad effects are the 
consequence. Even at last he still rests upon an unstable 
basis ; destitute of the correct operation of principle, and 
incapable of preventing an evil from a total ignorance of 
its real source of action, he can only in the end avoid it 
after a multiplicity of movements, wherein he finds his 
practical knowledge increased at the expence of a consi- 
derable sacrifice of property. 
How much more enlightened would be the mind of the 
manufacturer, were he to attend minutely to the pheno- 
mena developed in all the stages of his process, and satis- 
fy himself as to the radical principles of action in each in- 
dividual stage ! In doing this, chemical minuteness, the 
terror and butt of the unphilosophised mind, is not abso- 
lutely indispensible ; and yet every thing may be ascer- 
tained necessary to be known for the production of certain 
determinate qualities of crude iron. 
He would then easily comprehend that all iron-stones 
contain less or mere water of crystallisation, and that, be- 
ing combined with a certain proportion of lime neutralised 
with carbonic acid, it is necessary that they be exposed to 
a heat sufficient to expel the first and last of these as well 
as sulphur. The reason has already been given, and the 
consequence shall be once more stated. The evil effects 
produced by introducing raw iron-stones into the blast- 
furnace, are less owing to the small portion of sulphur' 
contained in most of them, especially in balls, (the va- 
pours of which arise even from the softest crude 
iron when fluid,) than to the decomposition of water and 
