A Guide to the Old Stone Blast Furnaces in Western Pennsylvania, Part III
A Guide to the Old Stone Blast Furnaces in Western Pennsylvania, Part III
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宾夕法尼亚州西部旧石高炉指南,第三部分
DOI:
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发表时间:
1965
期刊:
影响因子:
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通讯作者:
W. Thomas
中科院分区:
文献类型:
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作者:
M. B. Sharp;W. Thomas
Iron, the second most plentiful of the useful metals, has been known and used since the beginning of recorded time. With the exception A of the deposit of pure iron at Ovifak on the west coast of Greenland, itis almost always found in combination with other elements. To be useful the ore has to be "reduced" or separated. This is done in a smelter or blast furnace. The first metallic iron probably was made accidentally, either by lightning striking some ore or by a wood fire burning on a deposit of ore. In this way men also learned that wood or charcoal helped to refine the metal. At first this was done in shallow depressions in the ground; but, as the centuries passed and each generation added its additional knowledge, the blast furnace, as we know it today, was evolved. Tubal-cain, who was only seven generations removed from Adam, is described in the Bible as "an instructor of all artifices in brass and iron." The Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians all knew of and used iron. Their literature is fullof references to it. When Caesar invaded England, he found iron money in use but not iron weapons. Fabricated iron was rare inEngland and Scotland because the natives did not know that iron could be smelted without charcoal. For many centuries they frowned upon its manufacture because the burning of wood to make charcoal exhausted their limited forests. As a result, until they learned to make iron with coal or coke, they encouraged the importation of iron from Spain, Sweden and Russia. In America the situation was different. The early European settlers had seemingly unlimited supplies of wood in the forests in the eastern part of the continent and people were anxious to have the