Isaac
Lowthian Bell, who has brought the manufacture of iron to the position
of a highly scientific operation. In the production of wrought iron by
the puddling process, and in the subsequent mill operations, there is
no very considerable change, except in the magnitude of the machines
employed, and, in the greater rapidity with which they now run. In
saying this, I am not forgetting the various "mechanical puddlers"
which have been put to work, nor the attempts that have been made by
the use of some of them to make wrought iron direct from the ore; but
neither the "mechanical puddler" nor the "direct process" has yet come
into general use; and I desire to be taken as speaking of that which
is the ordinary process pursued at the present in puddled iron
manufactures. In 1831, a few hundredweights was the limit of weight of
a plate, while in 1881, there may readily be obtained, for
boiler-making purposes, plates of at least four times the weight of
those that were made in 1831. I may, perhaps, be allowed to say that
there is an extremely interesting blue-book of the year 1818,
containing the report of a parliamentary committee which sat on boiler
explosions, and I recommend any mechanical engineer who is interested
in the history of the subject to read that book; he will find it there
stated that in the North of England there was a species of engines
called locomotives, the boilers of which were made of wrought iron,
beaten, not rolled, because the rolled plate was not considered fit;
it was added that if made of beaten iron the boiler would last at
least a year.
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