some time with bellows made of goats' skins. The operation went on very slowly at first, and it was some hours before the flame appeared above the furnace; but after this it burnt with great violence all the first night, and the people who attended put in at times more charcoal. On the day following the fire was not so fierce, and on the second night some of the tubes were withdrawn, and the air allowed to have free access to the furnace, but the heat was still very great, and a bluish flame rose some feet above the top of the furnace. On the third day, from the commencement of the operation, all the tubes were taken out, the ends of many of them being vitrified with the heat, but the metal was not removed until some days afterwards, when the whole was perfectly cool. Part of the furnace was then taken down, and the iron appeared in the form of a large irregular mass, with pieces of charcoal adhering to it. It was sonorous, and when any portion was broken off, the fracture exhibited a granulated appearance, like broken steel.

The owner informed him that many parts of this cake were useless, but still there was good iron enough to repay him for his trouble. This iron, or rather steel, is formed into various instruments, by being repeatedly heated in a forge, the heat of which is urged by a pair of double bellows, of a very simple construction, being made of two goats' skins, the tubes from which unite before they enter the forge, and supply a constant and very regular blast. The hammer, forceps, and anvil were all very simple, and the workmanship, particularly in the formation of knives and spears, was not destitute of merit. The iron he describes as hard and brittle, and that it requires much labour before it can be made to answer the purpose.

In the Himalaya Mountains, in Asia, iron is obtained by a smelting furnace of the following description :-It consists of a chimney, built of clay, about four feet and a half high, by fifteen to eighteen inches diameter, placed upon a stage of stone work, over a fire-place. In an opening below the stage there is a hole, through which the metal, when melted, flows, and this is stopped by clay or earth, easily removed by an

iron poker. The ore, which is black, but glittering with metallic lustre (like black ore of antimony) is mixed with charcoal pounded, and the chimney filled with the mixture, and, as it falls and consolidates, more is added from above.

The fire, once lighted, is kept alive by means of two pair of bellows, each made of a goat's skin, fixed in some way to the stone stage, and filled through apertures closed with valves, as ours are; a woman or boy sits between two of these skins, and raises and compresses them alternately with the hand; four such skins are thus applied to each chimney.

The method pursued in the two former instances is extremely simple, but, at the same time, very uncertain, whilst that employed in the latter presents a decided improvement, by the application of the bellows, which, although of no great power, yet, by affording a regular blast, renders the operation more certain, and the manufacturer independent of the weather.

We shall, in the following pages, see the, at first, gradual, and, subsequently, from the great improvements in machinery, very rapid steps by which this manufacture has been placed in its present leading station amongst the staple commodities of this and of other countries. The very high degree of perfection to which it has attained, has not only rendered it suitable to a variety of purposes, to which, until lately, it was not considered applicable, but has also rendered it an extensive article of exportation to every part of the world, and of the very first use and importance to the agricultural and manufacturing interests of our own country.

We cannot do better than conclude this introductory chapter in the words of Locke*: "Of what consequence the discovery of one natural body, and its properties, may be to human life, the whole great continent of America is a convincing instance; whose ignorance in useful arts, and want of the greatest part of the conveniences of life, in a country that abounded with all sorts of natural plenty, I think may be attributed to their ignorance of what was to be found in a very ordinary despicable stone-I mean the mineral of iron.

* "Essay on the Human Understanding," book iv. chap. 12.

And whatever we may think of our parts or improvements in this part of the world, where knowledge and plenty seem to vie with each other, yet, to any one that will seriously reflect on it, I suppose, it will appear past doubt, that were the use of iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Americans, whose natural endowments and provisions come no way short of those of the most flourishing and polite nations. So that he who first made known the use of that contemptible mineral, may be truly styled the Father of Arts, and Author of Plenty."

CHAP. II.

ENGLAND AND WALES.

HERODOTUS, who died about B. C. 414, tells us that "the Greeks knew the Phenicians fetched their tin from Britain." His remark establishes the fact of a trade of some standing; and can we suppose that the Britons during that intercourse, seeing the ships of their visitors, with all the usual requisites, iron arms and appointments, did not, even if before ignorant of iron and its uses, become fully instructed how to obtain it from its ores, and probably to form it into such things as they saw used, or as the Phenicians from accident or shipwreck might need to replace losses. More to confirm the preceding supposition, that the Britons knew and practised the manufacture of iron, we may remark, that Henry (in his Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 215., quoting Diod. Sic. lib. 5. sec. 22.) informs us that the Gauls were of the same origin, and spoke the same language as the ancient Britons, and that the Gaulish nations got possession of these coasts. It is unreasonable to suppose that a warlike nation should colonise Britain, and that the colonists should not bring with them their knowledge of iron and its uses in arms, &c., and at once labour to supply themselves. The Gauls were well skilled in mines. Strabo and Cæsar tell us in the Siege of Bourges, "they have great iron works, and every kind of mine." See chap. x. on France.

The worship of Baal, apparent in the Druid worship, may originate from the Phenicians, and would seem to mark the intimate connection of the two people, and the consequent probability that they taught their arts also to the Britons. The Phenician exclusive trading with Britain appears to have lasted about 300 years, till interfered with by the

Greeks at about the time when Aristotle flourished (he died B. C. 322), and he speaks of the Britannic Isles. Pytheas, of Marseilles, 330 years B. C., seems the first of the Greeks who discovered the British Isles. That people speedily used the discovery, and commenced trading for tin, an article much in request both in Greece and Asia, and for which large dealings seem to have been carried on then, and previously for a long time by the Phenicians. This intercourse may have materially civilised the Britons, and have brought the nation to the degree of advancement it attained prior to the Roman invasion, which did not happen till after the lapse of about 250 years.

Polybius wrote, about 190 years B. C., a book now lost concerning Britain, and the management of tin there, a proof the Greeks traded there long before his day. Henry, Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 209. The Syracusans certainly visited Britain up to B. C. 214, at which time they procured there and brought away a tree for a mainmast of the colossal ship of Archimedes. - Athen. Deipnos, lib. 5. c. 10.

The causes which operated to change the direct trading between the Greeks and Britons it seems difficult to determine, nevertheless they proved beneficial to the Gauls, through whose country, as we are informed (by Diod. Sic. 1. 5. sec. 22. p. 347.), a vast trade of tin was conducted. The tin ingots were carried from Cornwall to the Isle of Wight, sold to the foreign merchants who resorted there, and by them were landed in Gaul, and taken overland in about a month to the mouth of the Rhone. The same writer states, "Those Britons (of the Land's-End, Cornwall), live in a very hospitable and polite manner, which is owing to their great intercourse with foreign merchants." Cæsar also states (De Bel. G. lib. 5. c. 13.), that before his time the trade of Britain being carried on by the Gauls, the greatest number of ships from the Continent came to the Kentish ports, whose inhabitants were the most polite and conversant with foreign merchants.

Thus a mass of evidence brings us to the certainty that in this so civilised state of the Britons, they had acquired or