IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) h // :-/ 1.0 I.I 12.8 2.5 2.2 2.0 lU 11:25 1 1.4 1^ 1.6 p /a fi 73 ^> Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 \ ;1>^ ^V V CIHM Microfiche Series (l\/lonographs) ICMH Collection de microfiches (monographies) Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques Ss Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain ihe best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliugraphically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. 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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reprod-iit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de I'angle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 22X 12 3 4 5 6 NATIONAL UnRARY Canada IRON AND STEEL, » <^> « A Brief Historic Sketch of their Manufac- ture and Use. A PAPER READ BEFORE THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION, MARCH 23, 1882, BY A. T. FREED. It is oautomary to speak of the stone, the bronze and the iron ages ef the world, as if tbey were distinctly marked upoohs. It is a mistake so to regard them, for whilst oar fathers audoabtedly abandoned stone weapons and implements for bronze, and bronze for iron, the change took place at widely remote periods in different countries, and the periods in which the several materials were uoed in the same country overlapped each other. National intercourse was slow and restricted in the early ages of the world, and one nation voald be in full possession of an important discovery long before another not distant nation had heard of It. Tne bronze age had oome and gone on the shores of the Meditor- ranean, and iron was in general use while as yet the Skandiuavians and Britons were rude- ly carving deers' horns with flint knives and destroying tneir enemies with bludgeons. In the vast host which Xerxes led in to Greece were warriors bearing stone weapons, while the great majority w«re armed with bronze and a fow nad advanced to the use of steel. Bo that to speak of the ages of stune, of bronze and of iron is ae indefinite as if we shoald divide history into Htjes of absolat- ismu limited monarchy ai.a republicanism. The dawn of history found iron in hmited use. Ohinese historians say that it has been employed in their country for many thousands of years. Piiny the elder, in the early days of our own era wrote that, " as many kinds of irrin Ag tharA \\a mnno Mholl Tno4;«aK in rwr*^A nesB the stoel that oometh from the Seres, for this commodity also, as hard ware as it is, they send and sell with their soft silks and fine furs. In a second degiee of goodness may be placed the Parthian iron." India has made steel of the finest quahty from times immemorial ; and the method which was in use in prehistoric times is observed there to this day. A small clay crucible is made in which not more than two or three pounds of very fine soft iron are inclosed to- gether with charcoal, and covered with leaves of a certain plant, when the whole is subject- ed to great heat till the iron is melted and the result is a button of very fine and pare steel which they call wootz. When Alexan- der defeated Porus, the latter gave the con- queror 30 pounds of this steel, which was highly prized by him. Malleable iron was also made in India in large quantities in very early times. There is in the gate of a mosque near Delhi a pillar of soft iron 60 feet high, 16 inches in diameter near the base, and es • t^maied to weigh 17 tons. A Sanscrit inscrip- tion is interpreted by some to affirm that tnis pillar was erected in the tenth century before our era, and by some it is understood to make its date 14U0 years later. In the ruins of very ancient Indian temples wrought iron beams have been foand,and metallurgists are puzzled to understand how these immense masses could have been handled and wroaght by means known to have been in existence in those days. The Ohaijbians, a people in- habiting the southern shores of the Euxine, were famous among the ancients for theur iron and steel. Herodotus speaks of them as "a people of ironworkers," and from them steel was named. £ Fcqilcut uieutidu Is mado Ol ifOn and steSl in the Hebrew scriptures, but it is to be noted that when Solomon would build the temple, a thousand years before our era, he was obliged to send to the King of Tyre for a man skilled to work '*m gold and silver, and in brass and in iron." Ohaideaa i&soriptioBS P3 speak of iron as havinsrbeen in nee from time imrafcmonal. Nebuchadnezzar in an inaorip- tion telling of his worka of improvement in Babylon Bays : '• With pillars and beams plated with oepper and strengthened with iron 1 built up its gates." His daughter Nuooris built a bridge the stones of which were held together by bands of iron fixed in their places by molten lead. At Nineveh, Lajard found numerous relics, iuolnding " a perfect helmet of iron, inlaid wiih copper bands, as well as many other articles of iron, Two or three baskets were filled with these relics." lu Egypt iron was used in the earliest times. In 1837 a piece of iron was taken ftom an inner joint of the great pyramid at Gizeh.and is now in the Biitish museum. Ihe almost universal opinion of the best Egyptologists places the erection of that edi- fice at about 4,000 years before our era, so that this venerable bit of rusty metal is un- doubtedly the oldest piece of manufactured iron of which men have any knowledge. Wil- kinson copies un engraving showing the process of smelling iron by the aid of bellows m the shape of leather bags, trodden by a man who exhausts the air from one while with it string he raises the other and permits ii to be refilled. Butchers are depicted on the monuments wearing steels such as are used to-day. Sickles and other weapons of steel are pictured in great num- bers and colored blue to distinguish them from the bronze weapons which are color- ed red. Belzoni found an iron sickle under the foot of a sphynx at Oarnao, and it ie now in the British museum. Kenrick, in " An- cient Egypt under the Pharaohs " copies an aooonnt of a military expedition made by Thothmes I., who reigned about 1700 years before our era. From some of the Deltan Kings this monarch received as tribute or presents gold and silver, as well as " bars of wrought metal, and vessels of copper, and of bronze, and of iron." From the region of Memphis he received wine, iron, lead, wrought metal, animals, etc. When I read that the same King in a successful foray against " Chadasha " took muoh booty, in- eluding " iron of the mountains, 40 cubes," I was tempted to think that Jerusalem must have been meant; but I believe the Chadasha mentioned, is understood to be a city of the Ehetae or Hitiites, and not JerusaUm, the Khodesh or sacred city of the Jews, and El Khuds of the modern Arab. The dawn of history finds iron in use among the Greeks. One legend, and the most probable, says they derived a know- ledge of it from the Piioeoicians, while an» othtr says that the burning of the forests on IRON AND STEEL. Mount Ida smelted the iron ore exposed to the fames, and revealed the secret ol work- ing in iron. That such could have been the oiise IS next to impossible. Homer speaks of iron and weapons of iron and steel— rarely in the Iiiad, frequently ia the Odyssey. I leave the Wolfian and other Homeric scholars to decide whether any par- ticular significance attaches to that fact. Nor will 1 pretend to say whether or not Homer had historic knowledge enabling him to decide tnat iron implements ana weapons were used auring the siege of Troy, say about 1,200 years before our era, or whether he simply supposed conditions similar to those he saw around him to have existed in the days of wnich he wrote, just as Shakespeare sup- pobed cannon to have been used in the days when the Danes governed England. Homer mentions axes of steel. Gladstone, m his Homeric Synchronisms, says : " Iron is in Homer, exceedingly rare and precious. He mentions nothing massive that is made of this material." Among the prizes offered at the funeral games of Patrooius is " a mass of shapeless iron from the forge," and Achilles says : Stand forth, whoever -will contend for this ■ *'■ ■ •?. ',* ^'9^'^ ^®^'1» '"I'i 'icb be his. the mass ^viU last bim many years. The man who tendb Hi8 flocks or guiaes his plow need not be sent To town for iron ; he wUl have it here. We may infer from this that iron was very valuable, for the mass in question was no more than a man might lift ; and that it was used in agriculture before it was utilized for the manufacture of arms or armor. An early as 700 years before Christ the iron ores of Elba were worked by the Greeks, who called the island Ethalia •• from the blazes of the iron works." Strabo* says .that at the beginning of our era the Iron mines of Euboea were exhausted. Glau- ous of Ohios made a silver cup, inlaid with iron about 660 B. 0. Sophocles, 400 B speaks of the tempering of iron in water' and It is certain that steel swords were made about the same time. The father of Demosthenes made steel arms When Xerxes invaded Greece, the Assyrians who accompanied him were armed with clubs, " knotted with iron." Daimachus a Greek writer of Alexander's age, mentions four kinds of steel, the Chalybdic and Synopic from which ordinary tools were made. The Laoedffimonian, from which were made files augers, chisels and stone-cutting implements • and theLjdian, which was used in the man- ufacture of swords, razors, and other surgical instruments. Iron sickles and other agri- cultural implements were common in the time of Alexander. H IRON AND STEEL. The BomuiB were not workera in iron, thongh they encouraged the indastrv among the peoples whom they oonqaered. The mines of Elba, which had snooeasively been worked by the PhoenioiaQB, the Greeks and the Etrurians, oontinued their operations under Homan rule ; but we do not learn that any improvements in prooeBses of manufacture were introduced. The bellows were aubstanx tially the same as the blacksmith's bellows in use in our day, and the first reduction of the ore produced a email loop or bloom of spongy malleable iron, which was beaten on an anvil into the shape most suitable for the transport- ation to market or for the blacksmith's uae. That iron weapons were in use at an early day is proved by the tact that king Porsenna, 500 years before our era, imposed upon the Bomans as a condition of peace that they should use iron only for agricul- tural implements. Tne best iron brought to Rome at thebeginniuKof our era oame from Noricum, corresponding to parts of Styria and Garinthia, and it is believed that the mmes now worked at Erzberg and Hutten- berg are the same that were worked twenty centuries ago. The (juadi who lived north of Noricum in what is now Moravia, uere then spoken of as a nation of iron workers ; and it was from Moravia, that fifteen centuries later one of the most valuable discoveries in connection with iron— that of coating it with tin — was derived. The Spanish iron industry flourished during the Oartbagioian occupation, and probably be- fore. The Bomans attributed Hannibal's success at OannsB in part to the fact that his troops were.avmed with Spanish swords of superior quality. Diodorus Siculus speaks of Spanish two-edged swords "exactly tempered with steel," made from iron which had been buried in the ground "to eat out all the weaker particles of the metal, and leave only the strongest and purest." The notion is not yet quite extinct that rust first attacks and destroys the poorer and baser parts of ihe iron, leaving the finest and the best. The manufacture of Toledo blades, begun in prehistoric times, has conn tinned till our day, attaining its greatest proportions, as the weapons attained their greatest celebrity, in the fifteenth and six- teentb centuries. Wben Csaaar invaded Britain, 55 years be- fore our era, he found iron in use there. Most accounts represent that the natives who met the BomsDS e!i!"lQ?ed chariots armed with iron scythes. I have looked carefully through Cffidar for confirmation of that state- ment; but, though I find mmy references to the chariots, I find no account of the iron scythes. It is certain, however, that the Britons had iron. Some writers think they did not make it, but obtained what they had from the Belgas, with whom they had consid- erable intercourse, and who certainly manu- factured iron. Others maintain that the Britons themselves made iron. Casaar says of them : " They use either brass or iron rings, determined at a certain weight, as their money. Tin is produced in the midland re- gions ; in the maritime iron ; but the quantity of it is small : they employ brass, wtiiob is imported." Caesar's stay on the island was brief, and his knowledge of it far from exten>< sive or accurate. My own belief is that at the time of Caaair's visits iron had been made in Britain for centuries, and in considerable quantities. At various places in England, but chiefly in the weald of Kent, the weald of Su»sez,aDd in the Forest of Dean in Glouces- tershire, have beeu found vast beds of cinder or slag, the remains f iron works which ex- isted there in very early times. Ttiat these operations were carried on during the Roman occnpatiun or later is evidenced by the fact that Roman coins and pottery have been found in the cinder. But 1 believe they were also carried on before the arrival of the Bo- mans. The smelting operations were to a large extent conducted in wind bloomaries, wittiout any artificial blast. These bloom- aries were built on the tops of hills, with openings in the direction of the prevailing winds. The ore, mined with infinite patience and toil, was oar-* ried up to the^e furnaces on men's backs, and the operation was wasteful of metal as of labor ; for so little of it was extracted from the ore that in late years the slag has been remelted in modern furnaces, and the opera- tion found remunerative. Now, the Bomans had for centuries been accustomed to the use of the bellows in smelting iron ; and if they had introduced tbe industry into Britain they certainly would have adopted the methods known to them and not have reverted to a rnder, more waatefnl and more laborious one. I am therefore compelled to believe that when the Bomans invaded Britain they found the wind bloomary in use. The hearths of more modern bloomaries have been found, with Boman coins and remains among the ashes ; and these are pretty good evidences that during the Boman occupation, improve- ment!), based up m Bomau knowledge, were introduced. Andrew Yarranton says that " within a hundred yards of the walls of the eity of Worcester there was duM' up on© of the hearths of the Boman foot blast, it being then firm an^ in order, and was seven foot deep in the earth ; and by the side of the work there was found a pot of Boman coin to the quan- tity of a peck." St^bg says that in his day IRON ArJD STEEL non WM exported from Britain in ♦».- 121 a great Roman m"i tarvTr J *H\^." WHB estabJiehed at Ba h tL ^ °'' i^^""^ being obtained i?thePo;ett of ZnAf'J* S lo^^L^r fd ^ -:?e«iot*i ^ that., i^and beS the S of wllfr. T Gonqaerer th« nJ.,o# ° j'*" °' "iHip.m the none bot K SS .£ "• °° "°''' "' >"^ andtodoleUrtasneeiWt ^^^^^ '«« ing employed to ml^r m^kVSe n? ''^ '" 0' loop, ox won of mailable iron A f.„ ; kepi open nnlil ,h, ft„n„, ^J £t;;''_™ Mr,Lr-r^"r,:Snj s,n"c^'';,r"r°-^"™^^^ an,th.ng*:Mhrkin7Sh"hr'!,'° 'r 'y produced." The deL^fJf "°°^ "^^^ lb. top»..ib°l?i, 0,7,™, S" '','"'''''?,"' "» invented by Hans Tinh.il, • ^ ^"'°^> ''^^ 1560. From tZ t^if'T^ '".^""""y'" the hearthToa ?° oS"'' As L' ^' '°"°"' °* Btill larger the ore ^hail^ ''"■°*°« «"" from thd fuel till t^f« ™uT''*/ ""^ »"bon The old furnLeUJ^J^^^^^ i»wa« melted, as a etuckofen and he hfah 7° '" Germany ofen or flussofen thaf- 1*^ ^""'*°® » ''laa- bellows, or a flowiL fnrnf"'" '^* ''"P^^^'^ duct was withdrrwn^in t^ ''u'"°*°'° ^''^ P"" Of molten iron Tn F„ f '^"^u^ °* "^ '*'«»«> lows of wood on the old nin* *"'''''"'"' '^'• great size and operated htr» """" "'"'« °* these supplied a bla« «f ^ ""'^^ P"''^'' «"»d Bo'Sets: ra^hrtr"'"'*'^^^'' sumption of oharooal th-^ ^'^'" ''°°" were passed and?h« nr 5'\"P'^'"'« ^^^s greatly lessened and «.«'*"°i'"° °^ "°° ''»« int^if-""^SlSr less than^he?n"e%°rA°^^4V,°3lf.-to" no whioh Have to England the r,L «!' r" °'^" iron manufacture which Jtl Preeminence m highly iniportSinvenLn ;:Xat of-'"f.- ^ f«r converging bloods into^d" b'a^S ° r p£ r IRON AND STEEL. inBtosd of porformiDg that work by the slow and laboriouB manipnlation of the hammer. It is onatomary to say that Oort invented rolle m 1783 ; but I found in the library of the Frankhn Institute at Philadelphia a copy of a patent granted to John Payne nearly half a century earliar. This patent is dated Nov. 21, 1728. The first part iti for the oonvereion of oaet into malleable iron by the application of aahea, salt, etc., to pig or sow iron while in the refinery fire, "which," the patent says, "will render the same into a state of mallea bility as to bear the stroke of the hammer, to draw it into barrs, or other forms at the pleas ure of the workman, and those or other barrs being treated in the said melted ingredients in a long hot arch or cavern, as hereafter described; and those or other barrs are to pass between two large mettallrowlers (which have proper notches or furrows upon their surfass) by the force of my entiine hereafter decsribed, or other power, into such shapes and forms as shall be required." In this document we have a faithful description of grooved rolls, and also an acconnt of the decarbonization of oast iron in a reverberatory f urnoce - that is a process of puddHng iron, instead of reduc- ing it to nature by the slow and expensive process of repeated heatings and hammerings, as had theretofore been practiced. Another candidate for the honor of having invented rolls was Major John Hanbury, who professed to have made the discovery in 1729, a year after Payne's patent was granted.' About 1680 Andrew Yarranton was sent into Saxony to learn the art of coating iron with tin. ^ho knowledge of that process is said to L. w been carried into Saxony from Bohemit by a clergyman, but its origin is lost. Tarranton succeeded m his mission, and brought the art into England, where the manufaoture of tinned plates soon assumed considerable proportions, not only for home use, bnt for export. After the introduction of rolls the English plates were considered superior to those made on the continent, be- cause they were rolled and not hammered, and were consequently of equal thickness throughout. A great impetus was given to the iron trade in England by the labors of Henry Oort toward the close of the 18cb century. He greatly improved the rolls and brought them into general use ; and he perfected the process of pud- dling, bringing it g.,Ki,.antial!y to its present perfection. It will be remembered that the product of the low bloomary wa? malleable iron, the carbon in the fuel was all burned away by a strong blast of air directed through the tngeres upon the bloom as it form- ed. The process was slow and expensive though it is to be noted that bloomaries only slightly improved a.e in use to-day and pro- duce high grade malleable iron of first rate quality in competition with modern iurnaoes. When the high furnace was introduced it made the first production of iron much cheap- er, bnt the iron was oast iron, and tno ex- pense of converting it into malleable iron in the finery was tgdious and costly. Oort by the puddling furnace made the operation simple and vary much cheaper. Another highly important improvement introduced into England about the middle of the eighteenth century was the substitution of mineral fuel for charcoal. The attempt had been made a century earlier by Dud Dudley, a cousin I believe of the unfortunate husband of Lady Jane Grey, but though he demonstrated the practicability of it, he achieved for himself only ridicule, disappoints ment and great pecuniary loss. Revived in 1735 by Abraham Darby at Ooalbrookdale in Shropshire, it proved immediately successful and restored to Britain her iron industry' which had fallen into a great decline through want of fuel. The first iron cylinders for supplying a blast to the furnace were con- structed by John Smeaton at the Oarron Iron works in Scotland, and steam was first used at the same works to furnish the power through the influence of Dr. Roebuck. Since then the only important improve- ments introduced in the productive iron in- dustry have been the application of the hot blast, first employed by Nwlson in Scotland in 1728, and the withdrawal of unconsnmed gases from the top of the furnace, and their utilization for the production of heat. I think Franco is entitled to credit for that dis- covery. Iron is of two kinds ; cast iron containing from 2 to 6 per cent of carbon, which la brittle and granular in its construction ; and malleable or wrought iron, which is ductile and fibrous, and contains little or no carbon. Between the two lies steel, containing from a quarter of 1 pe'- cent to 2 per cent of carbon. If you ask me for a technical definition of the word steel, I shall tell you frankly that I cannot give it, and I have heard some very ex- pert metallurgists express a dislike to be put to the same test. A few years ago you would be told off hand that steel was an article wliich would forge, temper and weld ; but if you demand these qualities to day yon will relegate io the iron heHp a great many arti- cles which the world calls steel, including all metal produced by the pneumatic process, and I shall be compelled to tell you that there are not a thousand tons of steel rails in ex- istence. I beUeve the article produced in the IRON AND STEEL. Beisemer converter, however, to be « trae Hteel, bat it will not weld. In former timea ateei was aometimes ob- tainad as part of the pronnot of the bloomary united in certain proportiona with soft iron in the bloom or loop. Bat when it waa desired to produce steel from iron, very fine bar iron was arranged in layers in a fire-briok ovnn, each layer of iron being overlaid with char- coal. All openings were then oarefnlly closed with clay and the whole oven was heated to redness and kept at that temperature for from seven to ten days. This process is slill employed, and the product is variously known aa cement or blister steel, or, if the bars are rolled tORether to secure homogeneity, as shear steel. Reaumur described this process in 1722 ; and it is not known how long be- fore his time it was employed or wkere, when or by whom it was introduced. About the middle of last century Benjamin Huntnman, in England iutroduoed the modern method of making crucible cast steel Bubetantially as it is practiced to •day. Steel was also aomotimea made by dipping bare of soft iron into molten oast iron, from which they absorbed a portion of the carbon and were converted into steel ; and some- times malleable and cast iron were fused to' gether in a close chamber producing steel of inferior quality. Siemens Martin steel is made by the de- carbonization of cast iron in a reverber- atory furnace heated with gas, the flame of which asRista the reaction ; and the subse- quent recarbonization of the bath by the ad- dition at the close of the process of white iron, apiegileisen, or ferro manganese. The operation requires from four to eight hours. The Thomap Gilchrist proceaa ia simply an improvement upon the Bessemer or pneu- matic process. A chemical lining is put into the converter, which absorbs phosphorus and other objectionable minerals from the melted metal, and permita the use of a lower grade of iron than ia possible in the Bessemer process. Puddled steel ia made in much the same way as wrought iron ia made from cast iron. That ia, the iron is melted in a reverberatory furnace exposed to a strong draft of atmos- pheric air, and is kept stirred or puddled until the oxygen of air uniies with the carbon in the iron and burcs it cut. If steel is de- aired the metal is withdrawn before all the carbon is oonanmed ; if iron is desired the process ia continued till the carbon is consumed, when the metal is brought to a spongy, pasty condition, is rolled into' balls or blooma, and ia lifted to the squeezer, where the slag and other imparities are squeezed out. Paddled, or open hearth'ateel, as it is generaUy called 18 growing in favor, and in England ita prox duotion la increasing more rapidly than that of Bessemer or pneumatic steol. The modt important metallurpioal discovery of the age was that of making steel from oast iron by the pneumatic prooeas. This was the invention of Sir Henry Besaemer, and waa made about 30 years ago. Besaemer'a first idea waa to produce wrought iron by forcing a strong blant of atmospheric air through the melted iron by which the carbon would be burned away and the iron reduced to nature. Hia earlier experimenta were disastrous fail- ures. The iron produced waa so brittle as to be almost worthless, and no steel werthy of the name could be made. At length Mr. Robert Mushet anageated that if mangenese were added to the iron good steel cauld be maae. This was done and proved highly aucoeasful. Some improvements were also made in the lining of the converters by which the amount of silicon in tha iron waa re- duced. The Besaemer prooeaa requires a good quahty of pig iron, reasonably free from phosphorus, sulphur and arsenic, and not containing a superabundance of ailicon or t'tanenm. Thia la melted in an ordinary furnace and conveyed to the converter, which somewhat resembles an immense soda water bottle with the neck wrenched to one aide. The ordinary converter containa from five to ten tona of molten iron, but is then not more than one fourth filled. A powerful blast of air la now conveyed to the bottom of the con- verter whence it riaes through the iron unit- ing with the carbon and producing combustion and intense heat. The blow is usually continued for 16 to 20 minutes and manganese is added during the process generally in the shape of spiegileisen, but sometimes as ferro-manganese. ^'■■:,. ^the operation has continued a sufficin t time which is determined by means of the speolro' scope, the blast ia stopped, the converter is tipped to one aide, the metal flows into moulds.and the ingota ao formed are known a Bessemer blooma. Sir Henry Beasemer'a royalty amounts to only a shilling a ton, but w 187 i Mr. J. S. Jeans, secretary of the British Iron association, wrote that he had *i oKnnnA'!'* ,-*™" his patent upward of ;tl,UoO 000 sterling. A description of the first iron works estab- hshed in Canada will not, 1 hope, prove un- interesting. ^Colbert, the great French financier and i rime Miuiater to Louis XIV., was strongly impresHed with the importance of the Cana-. dian dominions of France, andjhe carried on a long correspondence wtth M Talon, the royal intendant, with a view to the discovery IRON AND STEEL. and working of the mineral treasures of New Franoe. Many of these letters are now in the Parliamentary library at Ottawa. In 1650 Father Drouillettes, a member of that noble band of Jesuit missionaries who did so muob to eiplore and devulop not dan- ada alone, but the whole country as far as the MiBsiPsippi. settled among and oonvt^ried to Ghristianity a tribe of Indinns, tho Attikame- gnes, living near Three Bivers, at the mouth of the St. Maurion, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, about midway o( Htadaoona, Quebec, and Hochelaga, Montreal. It is probable, though not certain, that Father Drouillettes reported the existenoe of iron near that point, for in 1666, M. Talon, who had been sent by Colbert to (iaspe to look for silver and bad failed, sent the Sienr de la Tetiserie to Bale St. Paul, near Trois Bivieres, where he found iron ore which appeared to be rich. M. La Portardiere was sent from Que- bec to inspect the mine, but his report was unfavorable, and nothing praotioal was done for seventy years. In 1681 the Marquis de Denonville reported to his Majesty's Government that be was con- vinced a very fine iron mine existed at Trois Bivieres, where a forge could be profitably worked. He said he had sent some of the ore to M. Colbert, who tested it with favorable results. In 1686 the same nobleman report- ed that he bad sent a sample of the ore to France, where the iron workers found it "of good quality and percentage," and desired fifteen or twenty "bariques" of it to give it a thorough trial. In 1672 the Oonnt de Fron- tenac reported that be bad begun to mine the ore and that "there are six piles of ore now lying at Gap Madelaine, which, according to the annexed report of the miner, would last for two uastini^s per day for four months." He strongly urged the establishment of "forges and a foundry." In 1737 a firm known as Cugnet et Cie., was formed by royal charter, which acquired the mines and a tract of forest land, and at once erected two furnaces, a foundry and dwellings for the operatives. There was a French garrison at Trois Bivieres, and the soldiers weie the principal workmen. 'i,'he operations appear to have been unprofitable, for in a few years Ougnet et Cie. surrendered their charter to the local Gover jment, and the works were carried on for some time by agents of the Crown. The fuel used was charcoal, the product of the furnaces was pig iron, and the greater part of this was cast into stoves, pots, etc., for local nee ; but some bar iron was made, though I jan find no des- oriptioQ of tbe method employed. It prob- ably was the old method of repeated heatings and hammerings, as there was a trip hammer operated by water power. In 1752 M Bigot, who was at that tim In- tendant of New France, resident at Quebec, instruoled M. Franqn> o visit the St. Maur- ice forges, and bio rip, . t is of great interest. After describing the locality be says : " Tho stream which drives the niHchinery of the es- tablishment is dammed up in three places ; the first dam driveo the wheel for tbe fur- nace, tbe second and third each a trip ham- mer. ... It is supposed that the stream or water power is sufiiciently strong to drive two other hammers. . . . On entering tbe smelting forgo I was received with a cuotomary ceremony : the workmen moulded a pig of iron about 16 feet long, for for my especial benefit. Tbe process is very simple : it is done by plunging a large ladle into tbe liquid boiling ore and emptying the material into a gutter made in the sand. After this ceremony, I was shown tbe process of stone moulding, which is also a very simple but rather intricate operation*. Each stone is in six pioces, which are separately mould- ed ; they are fitted into each other and form a stone about three leet high. I tiien visited a shed where the workmen were moulding pots, kettles and other hollow ware. On leaving this part of the forge we were taken to the hammer forge, where bar iron of every kind is hammered out. In each department of the forges the workmen observed tbe old ceremony of brushing the stranger's boots, and in return tliey expect some money to buy liquor to drink the visitor's health. The es« tablishment is very extensive, employing up- ward of 180 men. Nothing is consumed in furnaces but clean coal, which is made in the immediate vicinity of the post. The ore is rich, good and tolerably clean. Formerly it was found on tbe sj^ot : now the director has to send some little distance for it . . . This iron is preferred to tbe Spanish iron, and is sold ofif in the King's stores in Quebec at the rate of 25 or 30* per hundred pounds weight. In 1760, Quebec having been taken by Wolfe, Canada was ceded to Great Britain, and among tbe stipulations m the treaty was one that the papers relating to the forges should remain in tbe possession of M. Bigot, tbe intendaut, and should be transmitted to France without inspection of tbe British. For seven years after that event the works lay idle, but in 1767, Christopher Pehsier formed a company which obtained a conces- sion from Governor Carleton for tbe working of the forges for 16 years, at an annual rental of £26 lawful money of our said Province of Quebec. An indication of the relations bo soon established between the French and IRON AND STEEL. BngliBb people of Oanada is fnrniahed by the names of this company whiob embraced, ChrietopLtr Pelisier, Alexander Dumafl, Tboa. Dunn, Benjamin Price, Colin Drummond, Dumaa St. Mar»in, CJeorge Alsopp, James Johnston and Brooke Wats m. When this lease expired Oonrad GuRy took the works at an annual rental of £17 158. sterling. Various persons conducted the business down to 1801, when another firm took it at £B5 I sterling, which rental was reduced in 1810 to tSOO cur- rency. In 1815 a visitor wrote : " The foundry it- self is replete with convenience for carrying on an extensive concern ; furnaces, forges, cast- ing houses, workshops, etc., with the dwelling houses and other builiings, have quite the appearance of a tolerably large village. The articles manufactured consist of stoves of all descriptions that are used throughout the Provinces, large caldrons of kettles, that are used for making potashes, machinery for mills, with oast or wrought iron-work of all denominations. There are likewise large quantities of pig and bar iron expoit-d. The number of men employed is from 250 to 300. The principal foreman, engaged ti. making models, are jither English or Hootohmen ; the workmen are gentrally Canadians." The ownership remained in the Oovera- ment till 184G. In the year named the pro- perty was »old to Henry Stuart, who seriously embarrasBed himself by large and ill advised expenditures. He then rented it ; and it Bubseqiieutljr fell into the hands of Andrew Stuart and John Porter, of Quebec, who workea on a limited scale till 1859, when the fires were extinguished, The only information, later than that in the narrative which I have been able to get ia contained in a report to Parliament made in March, 1879. which says : " Thb St. Maurice Foboes.— Owned by F. Macdougall (& Son, Three Itivers ; using a bug ore ; mak- ing a very fine iron with charcoal fuel. The first fuinac9 was erected in 1737. Still run- ning with same fuel ; capacity lour tons." * Intricate simplicity was probably com- mon in those days. * The editor says "castors."— beaver akiuB.