In the reign of George I., a Mr. Fallowfield issued “proposals for making iron,” wherein he introduces some reflections on the miscarriages of Mr. Wood’s project of “making iron with pulverised ore.” Fallowfield had obtained a patent for making iron with peat, but delayed some time his putting it in practice, because of the mighty bustle made by Mr. Wood and his party. The proceedings of the latter projector furnish a fact under the present day.
It appears from the following statement, that Mr. Wood persisted till his scheme was blown into air by his own experiments.
April 16, 1731. “The proprietors assert that the iron so proposed to be made, and which they actually did make at Chelsea, on Monday, the 16th instant, is not brittle, but tough, and fit for all uses, and is to be manufactured with as little waste of metal, labour, and expense, as any other iron; and that it may and can be made for less than 10l. a ton, which they will make apparent to any curious inquirer.”
Whether this “call” upon the “curious inquirer” was designed to introduce “another call” upon the shareholders is not certain, but the call was answered by those to whom it was ostensibly addressed; for there is a notice of “Mr. Wood’s operators failing in their last trial at Chelsea, the 11th instant (May;) their iron breaking to pieces when it came under the great hammer.”[123] They excused it by saying the inspectors had purposely poisoned the iron! Had the assertion been true, Wood’s project might have survived the injury; but it died of the poison on the 3d of May, 1731, notwithstanding the affirmations of the proprietors, that “they actually did make iron at Chelsea, on Monday the 16th of April.”
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 47·95.
[118] Vol. i 965.