374 
Steel . 
at least to have ri5 sign& of attraction* Soon afterwards 
they begin to adhere, the attraction increases very rapidly, 
and it is with great difficulty that the whole is prevented 
from funning into one mass, which it is desirable to avoid, 
it being more convenient to stamp small pieces into thin 
cakes : this is done by putting the iron immediately un- 
der the forge hammer, and beating it into pieces about an 
inch thick, which easily break from the rest during the 
operation. These small pieces are then collected and 
piled to the height of about ten inches upon circular 
stones, which are an inch thick and nine inches in diame- 
ter. They are afterwards put into a furnace, in which 
the fire is reverberated upon them until they are in a semi- 
fluid state. The workmen then take one out of the fur- 
nace, and draw it into a bar under the hammer ; which 
being finished, they apply the bar to another of the piles 
of semi-fluid metal, to which it quickly cements, is taken 
again to the hammer, the bar first drawn serving as a han- 
dle, and drawn down as before. The imperfections in 
the bars are remedied by putting them into another fire 
called the chafery, and again subjecting them to the action 
of the forge-hammer. 
The above method is now most in use, and is called 
flourishing ; but the iron made by this process is in no 
respect superior to that w r hich I am going to describe. It 
is however not so expensive, and requires less labour. 
The process for refining crude iron, which was most 
common previous to the introduction of flourishing, is as 
follows : 
The pigs of cast iron are put into the refinery, as above, 
where they remain until they have acquired a consistence 
resembling paste, which happens in about two hours and 
a half. The iron is then taken out of the refinery, ‘and laid 
upon a cast iron plate on the floor, and beaten by the work- 
men with hand-hammers, to knock off the cinders and 
other extraneous matters which adhere to the metaL It is 
