ear to be when uttered some seventy-six
years ago.[3]

We will endeavour as briefly as possible to point out the important
character of Mr. Cort's improvements, as embodied in his two patents of
1783 and 1784. In the first he states that, after "great study,
labour, and expense, in trying a variety of experiments, and making
many discoveries, he had invented and brought to perfection a peculiar
method and process of preparing, welding, and working various sorts of
iron, and of reducing the same into uses by machinery: a furnace, and
other apparatus, adapted and applied to the said process." He first
describes his method of making iron for "large uses," such as shanks,
arms, rings, and palms of anchors, by the method of piling and
faggoting, since become generally practised, by laying bars of iron of
suitable lengths, forged on purpose, and tapering so as to be thinner
at one end than the other, laid over one another in the manner of
bricks in buildings, so that the ends should everywhere overlay each
other. The faggots so prepared, to the amount of half a ton more or
less, were then to be put into a common air or balling furnace, and
brought to a welding heat, which was accomplished by his method in a
much shorter time than in any hollow fire; and when the heat was
perfect, the faggots were then brought under a forge-hammer of great
size and weight, and welded into a solid mass. Mr. Cort alleges in the
specification that iron for "larger uses" thus finished, is in all
respect's possessed of the highest degree of perfection; and that the
fire in the balling furnace is better suited, from its regularity and
penetrating quality, to give the iron a perfect welding heat throughout
its whole mass, without fusing in any part, than any fire blown by a
blast. Another process employed by Mr. Cort for the purpose of
cleansing the iron and producing a metal of purer grain, was that of
working the faggots by passing them through rollers. "By this simple
process," said he, "all the earthy particles are pressed out and the
iron becomes at once free from dross, and what is usually called
cinder, and is compressed into a fibrous and tough state." The
objection has indeed been taken to the process of passing the iron
through rollers, that the cinder is not so effectually got rid of as by
passing it under a tilt hammer, and that much of it is squeezed into
the bar and remains there, interrupting its fibre and impairing its