230 
Iron . 
are again heated in a fire called a chafery , which is urged 
by a powerful pair of bellows, and scarcely differs from a 
common smith’s forge, except in being larger, and the 
cokes upon it being heaped up to the unusual height of 
at least two feet. In this situation they are raised to the 
point of welding, and afterwards hammered out into in- 
gots of a flattened shape. Iron bars are united to them 
very shortly after they are brought from the balling fur- 
nace, to afford a greater facility of management, in the 
same manner as was described in the making of blooms ; 
and these, as before, are detached, when the ingot is suffi- 
ciently formed. The iron produced in this way is not con- 
sidered so good as that afforded by either of the other pro- 
cesses, and is employed, for the most part, in the com-, 
moner services of art. Repeated rolling, or hammering, 
is the only means of imparting the fibrous texture so ne- 
cessary to good bar iron ; and as this treatment is less fre- 
quent in the present mode of operating, the deficiency of II 
value in the material obtained may very probably be refer- 
able almost exclusively to this circumstance. 
The above include the whole of the important variations \ 
that are presented in the manufacture of bar-iron. Other i 
shades of disagreement may be traced in different w T orks ; 
but they are of a nature too trifling and unimportant to 
merit any particular enumeration. The art is still in its 
infancy ; and the light of chemical science, by being 
brought to a focus here, cannot fail to disclose many im- 
provements in the present modes of procedure, which 
will greatly abridge the expense now incident to this va- 
luable branch of national industry. That the mere ab- 
straction of about 4 per cent . of carbon should require a 
sacrifice, in effecting it, of above 40 per cent . of iron, ap- 
pears monstrous beyond example : and as those who are 
connected with the art become more scientific in their 
