ould serve as a substitute for the
prohibited article. There was known to be an abundance of coal in the
northern and midland counties, and it occurred to some speculators more
than usually daring, to propose it as a substitute for the charcoal
fuel made from wood. But the same popular prejudice which existed
against the use of coal for domestic purposes, prevented its being
employed for purposes of manufacture; and they were thought very
foolish persons indeed who first promulgated the idea of smelting iron
by means of pit-coal. The old manufacturers held it to be impossible
to reduce the ore in any other way than by means of charcoal of wood.
It was only when the wood in the neighbourhood of the ironworks had
been almost entirely burnt up, that the manufacturers were driven to
entertain the idea of using coal as a substitute; but more than a
hundred years passed before the practice of smelting iron by its means
became general.

The first who took out a patent for the purpose was one Simon
Sturtevant, a German skilled in mining operations; the professed object
of his invention being "to neale, melt, and worke all kind of metal
oares, irons, and steeles with sea-coale, pit-coale, earth-coale, and
brush fewell." The principal end of his invention, he states in his
Treatise of Metallica,[2] is to save the consumption and waste of the
woods and timber of the country; and, should his design succeed, he
holds that it "will prove to be the best and most profitable business
and invention that ever was known or invented in England these many
yeares." He says he has already made trial of the process on a small
scale, and is confident that it will prove equally successful on a
large one. Sturtevant was not very specific as to his process; but it
incidentally appears to have been his purpose to reduce the coal by an
imperfect combustion to the condition of coke, thereby ridding it of
"those malignant proprieties which are averse to the nature of
metallique substances." The subject was treated by him, as was
customary in those days, as a great mystery, made still more mysterious
by the multitude of learned words under which he undertook to describe
his "Ignick Invention" All the operations of industry were then treated
as secrets. Each trade was a craft, and those who followed it were
called craftsmen. Even the common carpenter was a handicraftsman; and
skilled artisans were "cunning men." But the higher branches of work