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CHAPTER VIII.

MANUFACTURES-HARDWARES-LEATHER AND FURSEARTHENWARE AND PORCELAIN-GLASS-PAPER AND PRINTING.

Sheffield-Early mention of its Cutlery-Cutlers' Company-Manufacture of Steel-Swedish Iron-Different kinds of Steel-Invention of Cast Steel-Incident at the Attercliff Works-Articles of Cutlery-Grindingstones Fork-Grinders - Metal Wares of Birmingham - Firearms Buttons-Steel Pens-Nails-Coffin Ornaments-Brass founding-Pins and Needles-Massive Wrought-iron Goods - Shot-Printer's TypesSteam-engines-Soho Works-Export of Hardwares-Leather Manufactures-Hides and Skins-Tanning-Saddlery and Gloves-Boots and Shoes-Furs and Fur-bearing Animals-Earthenwares-Antiquity of Pottery-Staffordshire Potteries-Burslem Butter-pots-Career of Wedgewood-Materials of Pottery-Porcelain-Glass; its Varieties-Historical Notices-Paper-First English Paper-mill-Materials-Paper-making Machine-Mr. Fourdrinier-Printing-Book-trade-Embossed Typogra phy for the Blind.

SHEFFIELD and Birmingham, the two great seats of manufactures in metais, betray their craft to the approaching stranger by volumes of smoke from numberless forges, deforming in the former case one of the most beautiful of English landscapes.

"How like a monster, with a league-long mane,

Towers the dense smoke! The falcon, wheeling near,
Turns, and the angry crow seeks purer skies."

The early history of both towns is obscure, as well as of the arts for which they are celebrated; but in the thirteenth century Chaucer mentions, in one of

his poetical tales, a Sheffield whittle, a kind of large knife customarily carried about the person for convenience and defence. Thus the place had a reputation for cutlery in the reign of Edward III.; and its products, though more homely, were scarcely less valued than the renowned blades of Toledo and Damascus in their respective spheres. In 1575, the Earl of Shrewsbury, lord of the manor of Hallam, in which district Sheffield is situated, sent to the prime minister Burleigh, “a case of Hallamshire whittels, being such fruits as his poor country affordeth with fame throughout the realm." Natural advantages led to the establishment of this branch of industry at the site, and they have contributed to its development. Seated near the south-western margin of the Yorkshire coal-field, all the varieties of coal are at hand for hard and soft coke, and also converting purposes, which the different operations require. Building-stone capable of bearing the great heat of the furnaces, suitable clay for fire-bricks, and excellent grindstones, are abundantly furnished in the neighbourhood, while the communication is easy by land and water with Hull, the port of entry for the irons of Sweden, Norway, and Russia. The fact of five rapid manageable streams converging towards the town, and finally blending, the Rivelin, Loxley, Don, Porter, and Sheaf, supplying water-power, was of prime importance before the age of steam, and is still a valuable auxiliary to its mechanical arts.

"Five rivers, like the fingers of a hand,

Flung from black mountains, mingle, and are one
Where sweetest valleys quit the wild and grand."

Among other articles produced at an early period by the Sheffield artisans, arrowheads are named, which

were in extensive demand for military and sporting purposes before fire-arms were known; but it was not till the middle of the last century, when trade with the continent commenced, and the manufacture of plated metal goods was introduced, that steel and metal works upon a large scale were established, and artisans began to exhibit that skill which has made their products renowned in almost every region of the globe, from the sandy deserts of Bokhara to the pampas of Buenos Ayres. At the Paris Industrial Exhibition a greater number of medals were awarded to individual exhibitors of Sheffield than to those of any other place; and the approbation of the jurors was still more marked by the presentation of a gold medal of honour to the town itself, which the emperor of the French delivered in person to representatives of the Cutlers' Company. This body was incorporated in the year 1624, but rules for the government of the craft had been formed at a much earlier period. The incorporation was founded on an act "for the good order and government of the makers of knives, sickles, shears, scissors, and other cutlery wares in Hallamshire and parts nearly adjoining." It is required by it, that all "persons engaged in the said business, make the edge of all steel instruments, manufactured by them, of steel and steel only; and to strike on their wares such mark, and such only, as should be assigned to them by the officers of the company." As these marks afford a guarantee of the good quality of the wares upon which they are stamped, they are highly valued; and it is illegal to forge or imitate them. This regulation obviously took its rise from the dishonest practice, which the great demand for cheap articles has since rendered somewhat prevalent, of

passing off common iron goods as made of steel by stamping that word upon them. Principal firms impress their own name and corporation mark upon their manufactures; but it is common also for the name of the retail dealer to be substituted for that of the maker.

The conversion of iron into steel by a careful series of furnace operations, and the use of the ponderous tilt hammer, has long been carried on to a very great extent at Sheffield, supplying material for its cutlers as well as most of the steel required for various purposes in all parts of the kingdom. Sheffield is in fact as closely identified with steel as Manchester with cotton, Leeds with cloth, and Newcastle with coal. The best steel is elaborated from Swedish wrought or bar iron. This is produced from the magnetic iron ore of a single mine, at Dannemora, about thirty miles from Upsal, the whole of which is despatched to this country, shipped and disembarked constantly at the same ports, and consigned to a single mercantile firm. "The quantity of iron," says Mr. Scrivenor, "which this mine yields every year, amounts to about four thousand tons; the whole of it is sent to England to the house of Messrs. Sykes, of Hull, where it is known by the name of Oregrund iron, taking its name from that of the port at which it is shipped.” The superiority of the Dannemora iron for the production of steel is ascribed by some chemists to the presence of manganese, or of silica, while others refer it exclusively to modes of preparation. Though the magnetic iron ore is abundant in Sweden, the amount of metal that can be made from it is limited by the quantity of charcoal obtainable from the forests within a moderate distance of the works. Of late

years, iron from the hæmatite ore of that country has been imported by the steel manufacturers, along with Russian iron, chiefly from the mines of the Demidoff family; and British produce is now extensively used. Steel differs from wrought-iron by the remarkable property, that when brought to a red heat, and suddenly cooled, either by being plunged into cold water, or by any other method, it acquires a great degree of hardness; and it is not a little singular, that the same operation has the opposite effect upon copper, which is softened by it.

Steel is essentially a compound of iron and carbon. It is manufactured by exposing the iron to a high temperature, in connexion with charcoal, so as to effect a change of chemical character. When and by whom the process originated has not been recorded; but the oldest converting furnaces were on the same principle as those at present in operation. Bars of iron alternating with layers of charcoal, are placed in rectangular troughs of siliceous freestone, capable of enduring without change a great degree of heat, and are submitted for a period of six, seven, or eight days to the action of the furnace, the fire of which is raised gradually by the converter, as well as regulated in its intensity. The quantity of metal operated upon at a time is commonly from sixteen to eighteen tons. Billets of oak are generally used for the charcoal, which is made by the pyroligneous acid manufacturers of the neighbourhood. The most inferior product of the furnace, or "blistered" steel, is so called from the appearances upon it. They arise, doubtless, from some impurities in the iron, which take the gaseous form under a high temperature, and raise the blisters by the force of their elasticity. All those articles of