ho was not a
British subject. That honor was highly appreciated, although at first
declined, because I feared that I could not give sufficient time to
its duties, owing to my residence in America.

As we had been compelled to engage in the manufacture of wrought-iron
in order to make bridges and other structures, so now we thought it
desirable to manufacture our own pig iron. And this led to the
erection of the Lucy Furnace in the year 1870--a venture which would
have been postponed had we fully appreciated its magnitude. We heard
from time to time the ominous predictions made by our older brethren
in the manufacturing business with regard to the rapid growth and
extension of our young concern, but we were not deterred. We thought
we had sufficient capital and credit to justify the building of one
blast furnace.

The estimates made of its cost, however, did not cover more than half
the expenditure. It was an experiment with us. Mr. Kloman knew nothing
about blast-furnace operations. But even without exact knowledge no
serious blunder was made. The yield of the Lucy Furnace (named after
my bright sister-in-law) exceeded our most sanguine expectations and
the then unprecedented output of a hundred tons per day was made from
one blast furnace, for one week--an output that the world had never
heard of before. We held the record and many visitors came to marvel
at the marvel.

It was not, however, all smooth sailing with our iron business. Years
of panic came at intervals. We had passed safely through the fall in
values following the war, when iron from nine cents per pound dropped
to three. Many failures occurred and our financial manager had his
time fully occupied in providing funds to meet emergencies. Among many
wrecks our firm stood with credit unimpaired. But the manufacture of
pig iron gave us more anxiety than any other department of our
business so far. The greatest service rendered us in this branch of
manufacturing was by Mr. Whitwell, of the celebrated Whitwell Brothers
of England, whose blast-furnace stoves were so generally used. Mr.
Whitwell was one of the best-known of the visitors who came to marvel
at the Lucy Furnace, and I laid the difficulty we then were
experiencing before him. He said immediately:

"That comes from the angle of the bell being wrong."

He explained how it should be changed. Our Mr. Kloman was slow to
believe this, but I urged that a small glass-model furnace and two
bells be mad