seem to have been able to make more
on an average than five tons a-week, and seven tons at the outside.
Nor was the iron so good as that made by charcoal; for it is admitted
to have been especially liable to deterioration by the sulphureous
fumes of the coal in the process of manufacture.

Dr. Plot, in his 'History of Staffordshire,' speaks of an experiment
made by one Dr. Blewstone, a High German, as "the last effort" made in
that county to smelt iron-ore with pit-coal. He is said to have "built
his furnace at Wednesbury, so ingeniously contrived (that only the
flame of the coal should come to the ore, with several other
conveniences), that many were of opinion he would succeed in it. But
experience, that great baffler of speculation, showed it would not be;
the sulphureous vitriolic steams that issue from the pyrites, which
frequently, if not always, accompanies pit-coal, ascending with the
flame, and poisoning the ore sufficiently to make it render much worse
iron than that made with charcoal, though not perhaps so much worse as
the body of the coal itself would possibly do." [1] Dr. Plot does not
give the year in which this "last effort" was made; but as we find that
one Dr. Frederic de Blewston obtained a patent from Charles II. on the
25th October, 1677, for "a new and effectual way of melting down,
forging, extracting, and reducing of iron and all metals and minerals
with pit-coal and sea-coal, as well and effectually as ever hath yet
been done by charcoal, and with much less charge;" and as Dr. Plot's
History, in which he makes mention of the experiment and its failure,
was published in 1686, it is obvious that the trial must have been made
between those years.

As the demand for iron steadily increased with the increasing
population of the country, and as the supply of timber for smelting
purposes was diminishing from year to year, England was compelled to
rely more and more upon foreign countries for its supply of
manufactured iron. The number of English forges rapidly dwindled, and
the amount of the home production became insignificant in comparison
with what was imported from abroad. Yarranton, writing in 1676, speaks
of "the many iron-works laid down in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and in the
north of England, because the iron of Sweadland, Flanders, and Spain,
coming in so cheap, it cannot be made to profit here." There were many
persons, indeed, who held that it was better we should be supplied with
iron