Yet by this Barring of Iron with Pitcole 30000 loads of Wood and more have been preserved for the general good, which otherwayes must have been had and consumed.
Symon Sturtevant, in his Metallica, in the Epistle to the Reader, saith, That there was then Anno 12. Jacobi in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales 800 Furnaces, Forges, or Iron Mills making Iron with Charcole: Now we may suppose at least 300 of these to be Furnaces, and 500 to be Forges; and each Furnace making fifteen Tun per week of Pig or cast Iron, and work or blow but Forty week per Annum, but some Furnaces make Twenty Tuns of Pig Iron per Week, and two Loads of Charcole or there about, go to the making of a Tun of Pig Iron: And two Loads (or two cords) of Wood, at the least, go to the making of a load of Charcole.
Now what Loads of Wood or Charcole is spent in great Brittain and Ireland Annually? but in one Furnace, that makes Fifteen Tun per Week of Pig-Iron for Forty weeks: I shall give you the Table, and leave you to judge of the rest of the Furnaces.
| Charcole, | Wood, | |
| 15. Tun per week spends of | 30 loads | 60 loads. |
| Per Annum 40 weeks spends | 1200 | 2400 loads. |
Also for one Forge that make Three Tuns of Bar Iron weekly for Fifty weeks, but some Forges make double my Proportion, and spend to Fine and Bar out each Tun three Loads of Coles: To each Tun.
| Charcole | Wood | |
| 3 Tun per week | 9 Loads | 18 loads |
| Per Annum | 450 loads | 900 loads |
By these Examples, may you see, the vast quantities of Charcole, or Wood, that the 300 Furnacis spend weekly, or yearly, and the 500. Forges workings all the year, spend little lesse then the Furnaces: It being impossible, after this rate for great Brittain or Ireland, to supply these her works with Charcole in Fining of Iron at the Fineries, yet the Forges that need but half the Charcole may be permitted to use Charcole, and may be supplyed with under Woods.
Let us but look back unto the making of Iron, by our Ancestors, in foot blasts, or bloomenies, that was by men treading of the Bellows, by which way they could make but one little lump or bloom of Iron in a day, not 100 weight, and that not fusible, nor fined, or malliable, until it were long burned and wrought under Hammers, and whose first slag, sinder or scorius, doth contain in it as much, or more Iron, then in that day the workman or bloomer got out, which Slag, Scorius, or Sinder is by our Founders at Furnaces wrought again, and found to contain much Yron and easier of Fusion than any Yron stone or Mine of Yron whatsoever of which slag and Sinders, there is in many Countryes Millions of Tuns and Oaks growing upon them, very old and rotten.
The next invention was to set up the Bloomeries that went by water, for the ease of the men treading the bellows, which being bigger, and the waterwheel causing a greater blast, did not onely make a greater quantity of iron, but also extracted more iron out of the slag or sinder, and left them more poorer of iron then the foot-blasts, so that the Founders cannot melt them again, as they do the foot blast sinders to profit: Yet these Bloomeries by water (not altogether out of use) do make in one day but two hundred pound weight of iron, or there abouts neither is it fusible, or malliable, but is unfined untill it be much burned, and wrought a second time in fire.
But some of the now going Furnaces with Charcole, do make two or three Tun of Pigg or cast iron in 24 hours.