The first furnace was blown at Carron on the first day of January,
1760; and in the course of the same year the Carron Iron Works turned
out 1500 tons of iron, then the whole annual produce of Scotland.
Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved plans, and the
production steadily increased.  Dr. Roebuck was indefatigable in his
endeavours to improve the manufacture, and he was one of the first, as
we have said, to revive the use of pit-coal in refining the ore, as
appears from his patent of 1762.  He there describes his new process as
follows:--"I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron in a hearth heated with
pit-coal by the blast of bellows, and work the metal until it is
reduced to nature, which I take out of the fire and separate to pieces;
then I take the metal thus reduced to nature and expose it to the
action of a hollow pit-coal fire, heated by the blast of bellows, until
it is reduced to a loop, which I draw out under a common forge hammer
into bar-iron."  This method of manufacture was followed with success,
though for some time, as indeed to this day, the principal production
of the Carron Works was castings, for which the peculiar quality of the
Scotch iron admirably adapts it.  The well-known Carronades,[2] or
"Smashers," as they were named, were cast in large numbers at the
Carron Works.  To increase the power of his blowing apparatus, Dr.
Roebuck called to his aid the celebrated Mr. Smeaton, the engineer, who
contrived and erected for him at Carron the most perfect apparatus of
the kind then in existence.  It may also be added, that out of the
Carron enterprise, in a great measure, sprang the Forth and Clyde
Canal, the first artificial navigation in Scotland.  The Carron
Company, with a view to securing an improved communication with
Glasgow, themselves surveyed a line, which was only given up in
consequence of the determined opposition of the landowners; but the
project was again revived through their means, and was eventually
carried out after the designs of Smeaton and Brindley.

While the Carron foundry was pursuing a career of safe prosperity, Dr.
Roebuck's enterprise led him to embark in coal-mining, with the object
of securing an improved supply of fuel for the iron works.  He became
the lessee of the Duke of Hamilton's extensive coal-mines at
Boroughstoness, as well as of the salt-pans which were connected with
them.  The mansion of Kinneil went with the lease, and there Dr.
Roebuck and his family took up their abode.  Kinneil House was formerly
a country seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, and is to this day a stately
old mansion, reminding one of a French chateau.  Its situation is of
remarkable beauty, its windows overlooking the broad expanse of the
Firth of Forth, and commanding an extensive view of the country along
its northern shores.  The place has become in a measure classical,
Kinneil House having been inhabited, since Dr. Roebuck's time, by
Dugald Stewart, who there wrote his Philosophical Essays.[3]  When Dr.
Roebuck began to sink for coal at the new mines, he found it necessary
to erect pumping-machinery of the most powerful kind that could be
contrived, in order to keep the mines clear of water.  For this purpose
the Newcomen engine, in its then state, was found insufficient; and
when Dr. Roebuck's friend, Professor Black, of Edinburgh, informed him
of a young man of his acquaintance, a mathematical instrument maker at
Glasgow, having invented a steam-engine calculated to work with
increased power, speed, and economy, compared with Newcomen's; Dr.
Roebuck was much interested, and shortly after entered into a
correspondence with James Watt, the mathematical instrument maker
aforesaid on the subject.  The Doctor urged that Watt, who, up to that
time, had confined himself to models, should come over to Kinneil
House, and proceed to erect a working; engine in one of the
outbuildings.  The English workmen whom he had brought; to the Carron
works would, he justly thought, give Watt a better chance of success
with his engine than if made by the clumsy whitesmiths and blacksmiths
of Glasgow, quite unaccustomed as they were to first-class work; and he
proposed himself to cast the cylinders at Carron previous to Watt's
intended visit to him at Kinneil.

Watt paid his promised visit in May, 1768, and Roebuck was by this time
so much interested in the invention, that the subject of his becoming a
partner with Watt, with the object of introducing the engine into
general use, was seriously discussed.  Watt had been labouring at his
invention for several years, contending with many difficulties, but
especially with the main difficulty of limited means.  He had borrowed
considerable sums of money from Dr. Black to enable him to prosecute
his experiments, and he felt the debt to hang like a millstone round
his neck.  Watt was a sickly, fragile man, and a constant sufferer from
violent headaches; besides he was by nature timid, desponding,
painfully anxious, and easily cast down by failure.  Indeed, he was
more than once on the point of abandoning his invention in despair.  On
the other hand, Dr. Roebuck was accustomed to great enterprises, a bold
and undaunted man, and disregardful of expense where he saw before him
a reasonable prospect of success.  His reputation as a practical
chemist and philosopher, and his success as the founder of the
Prestonpans Chemical Works and of the Carron Iron Works, justified the
friends of Watt in thinking that he was of all men the best calculated
to help him at this juncture, and hence they sought to bring about a
more intimate connection between the two.  The result was that Dr.
Roebuck eventually became a partner to the extent of two-thirds of the
invention, took upon him the debt owing by Watt to Dr. Black amounting
to about 1200L., and undertook to find the requisite money to protect
the invention by means of a patent.  The necessary steps were taken
accordingly and the patent right was secured by the beginning of 1769,
though the perfecting of his model cost Watt much further anxiety and
study.

It was necessary for Watt occasionally to reside with Dr. Roebuck at
Kinneil House while erecting his first engine there.  It had been
originally intended to erect it in the neighbouring town of
Boroughstoness, but as there might be prying eyes there, and Watt
wished to do his work in privacy, determined "not to puff," he at
length fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the mansion,
by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of water and
secure privacy.  Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of
remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside.  To the Doctor his anxiety seemed
quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under
apparently trivial difficulties.  Roebuck's hopeful nature was his
mainstay throughout.  Watt himself was ready enough to admit this; for,
writing to his friend Dr. Small, he once said, "I have met with many
disappointments; and I must have sunk under the burthen of them if I
had not been supported by the friendship of Dr. Roebuck."

But more serious troubles were rapidly accumulating upon Dr. Roebuck
himself; and it was he, and not Watt, that sank under the burthen.  The
progress of Watt's engine was but slow, and long before it could be
applied to the pumping of Roebuck's mines, the difficulties of the
undertaking on which he had entered overwhelmed him.  The opening out
of the principal coal involved a very heavy outlay, extending over many
years, during which he sank not only his own but his wife's fortune,
and--what distressed him most of all--large sums borrowed from his
relatives and friends, which he was unable to repay.  The consequence
was, that he was eventually under the necessity of withdrawing his
capital from the refining works at Birmingham, and the vitriol works at
Prestonpans.  At the same time, he transferred to Mr. Boulton of Soho
his entire interest in Watt's steam-engine, the value of which, by the
way, was thought so small that it was not even included among the
assets; Roebuck's creditors not estimating it as worth one farthing.
Watt sincerely deplored his partner's misfortunes, but could not help
him.  "He has been a most sincere and generous friend," said Watt, "and
is a truly worthy man."  And again, "My heart bleeds for him, but I can
do nothing to help him:  I have stuck by him till I have much hurt
myself; I can do so no longer; my family calls for my care to provide
for them."  The later years of Dr. Roebuck's life were spent in
comparative obscurity; and he died in 1794, in his 76th year.

He lived to witness the success of the steam-engine, the opening up of
the Boroughstoness coal,[4] and the rapid extension of the Scotch iron
trade, though he shared in the prosperity of neither of those branches
of industry.  He had been working ahead of his age, and he suffered for
it.  He fell in the breach at the critical moment, and more fortunate
men marched over his body into the fortress which his enterprise and
valour had mainly contributed to win.  Before his great undertaking of
the Carron Works, Scotland was entirely dependent upon other countries
for its supply of iron.  In 1760, the first year of its operations, the
whole produce was 1500 tons.  In course of time other iron works were
erected, at Clyde Cleugh, Muirkirk, and Devon--the managers and
overseers of which, as well as the workmen, had mostly received their
training and experience at Carron--until at length the iron trade of
Scotland has assumed such a magnitude that its manufacturers are
enabled to export to England and other countries upwards of 500,000
tons a-year.  How different this state of things from the time when
raids were made across the Border for the purpose of obtaining a store
of iron plunder to be carried back into Scotland!

The extraordinary expansion of the Scotch iron trade of late years has
been mainly due to the discovery by David Mushet of the Black Band
ironstone in 1801, and the invention of the Hot Blast by James Beaumont
Neilson in 1828.  David Mushet was born at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, in
1772.[5]  Like other members of his family he was brought up to
metal-founding.  At the age of nineteen he joined the staff of the
Clyde Iron Works, near Glasgow, at a time when the Company had only two
blast-furnaces at work.  The office of accountant, which he held,
precluded him from taking any part in the manufacturing operations of
the concern.  But being of a speculative and ingenious turn of mind,
the remarkable conversions which iron underwent in the process of
manufacture very shortly began to occupy his attention.  The subject
was much discussed by the young men about the works, and they
frequently had occasion to refer to Foureroy's well-known book for the
purpose of determining various questions of difference which arose
among them in the course of their inquiries.  The book was, however, in
many respects indecisive and unsatisfactory; and, in 1793, when a
reduction took place in the Company's staff, and David Mushet was left
nearly the sole occupant of the office, he determined to study the
subject for himself experimentally, and in the first place to acquire a
thorough knowledge of assaying, as the true key to the whole art of
iron-making.

He first set up his crucible upon the bridge of the reverberatory
furnace used for melting pig-iron, and filled it with a mixture
carefully compounded according to the formula of the books; but,
notwithstanding the shelter of a brick, placed before it to break the
action of the flame, the crucible generally split in two, and not
unfrequently melted and disappeared altogether.  To obtain better
results if possible, he next had recourse to the ordinary smith's fire,
carrying on his experiments in the evenings after office-hours.  He set
his crucible upon the fire on a piece of fire brick, opposite the
nozzle of the bellows; covering the whole with coke, and then exciting
the flame by blowing.  This mode of operating produced somewhat better
results, but still neither the iron nor the cinder obtained resembled
the pig or scoria of the blast-furnace, which it was his ambition to
imitate.  From the irregularity of the results, and the frequent
failure of the crucibles, he came to the conclusion that either his
furnace, or his mode of fluxing, was in fault, and he looked about him
for a more convenient means of pursuing his experiments.  A small
square furnace had been erected in the works for the purpose of heating
the rivets used for the repair of steam-engine boilers; the furnace had
for its chimney a cast-iron pipe six or seven inches in diameter and
nine feet long.  After a few trials with it, he raised the heat to such
an extent that the lower end of the pipe was melted off, without
producing any very satisfactory results on the experimental crucible,
and his operations were again brought to a standstill.  A chimney of
brick having been substituted for the cast-iron pipe, he was, however,
enabled to proceed with his trials.

He continued to pursue his experiments in assaying for about two years,
during which he had been working entirely after the methods described
in books; but, feeling the results still unsatisfactory, he determined
to borrow no more from the books, but to work out a system of his own,
which should ensure results similar to those produced at the
blast-furnace.  This he eventually succeeded in effecting by numerous
experiments performed in the night; as his time was fully occupied by
his office-duties during the day.  At length these patient experiments
bore their due fruits.  David Mushet became the most skilled assayer at
the works; and when a difficulty occurred in smelting a quantity of new
ironstone which had been contracted for, the manager himself resorted
to the bookkeeper for advice and information; and the skill and
experience which he had gathered during his nightly labours, enabled
him readily and satisfactorily to solve the difficulty and suggest a
suitable remedy.  His reward for this achievement was the permission,
which was immediately granted him by the manager, to make use of his
own assay-furnace, in which he thenceforward continued his
investigations, at the same time that he instructed the manager's son
in the art of assaying.  This additional experience proved of great
benefit to him; and he continued to prosecute his inquiries with much
zeal, sometimes devoting entire nights to experiments in assaying,
roasting and cementing iron-ores and ironstone, decarbonating cast-iron
for steel and bar-iron, and various like operations.  His general
practice, however, at that time was, to retire between two and three
o'clock in the morning, leaving directions with the engine-man to call
him at half-past five, so as to be present in the office at six.  But
these praiseworthy experiments were brought to a sudden end, as thus
described by himself:--

"In the midst of my career of investigation," says he,[6] "and without
a cause being assigned, I was stopped short.  My furnaces, at the order
of the manager, were pulled in pieces, and an edict was passed that
they should never be erected again.  Thus terminated my researches at
the Clyde Iron Works.  It happened at a time when I was interested--and
I had been two years previously occupied--in an attempt to convert
cast-iron into steel, without fusion, by a process of cementation,
which had for its object the dispersion or absorption of the
superfluous carbon contained in the cast-iron,--an object which at that
time appeared to me of so great importance, that, with the consent of a
friend, I erected an assay and cementing Furnace at the distance of
about two miles from the Clyde Works.  Thither I repaired at night, and
sometimes at the breakfast and dinner hours during the day.  This plan
of operation was persevered in for the whole of one summer, but was
found too uncertain and laborious to be continued.  At the latter end
of the year 1798 I left my chambers, and removed from the Clyde Works
to the distance of about a mile, where I constructed several furnaces
for assaying and cementing, capable of exciting a greater temperature
than any to which I before had access; and thus for nearly two years I
continued to carry on my investigations connected with iron and the
alloys of the metals.

"Though operating in a retired manner, and holding little communication
with others, my views and opinions upon the RATIONALE of iron-making
spread over the establishment.  I was considered forward in affecting
to see and explain matters in a different way from others who were much
my seniors, and who were content to be satisfied with old methods of
explanation, or with no explanation at all.....  Notwithstanding these
early reproaches, I have lived to see the nomenclature of my youth
furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art of iron-making, which is used
by many of the ironmasters of the present day with freedom and effect,
in communicating with each other on the subject of their respective
manufactures.  Prejudices seldom outlive the generation to which they
belong, when opposed by a more rational system of explanation.  In this
respect, Time (as my Lord Bacon says) is the greatest of all innovators.

"In a similar manner, Time operated in my favour in respect to the
Black Band Ironstone.[7]  The discovery of this was made in 1801, when
I was engaged in erecting for myself and partners the Calder Iron
Works.  Great prejudice was excited against me by the ironmasters and
others of that day in presuming to class the WILD COALS of the country
(as Black Band was called) with ironstone fit and proper for the blast
furnace.  Yet that discovery has elevated Scotland to a considerable
rank among the iron-making nations of Europe, with resources still in
store that may be considered inexhaustible.  But such are the
consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer of 1801 is no longer
considered the intrusive visionary of the laboratory, but the
acknowledged benefactor of his country at large, and particularly of an
extensive class of coal and mine proprietors and iron masters, who have
derived, and are still deriving, great wealth from this important
discovery; and who, in the spirit of grateful acknowledgment, have
pronounced it worthy of a crown of gold, or a monumental record on the
spot where the discovery was first made.

"At an advanced period of life, such considerations are soothing and
satisfactory.  Many under similar circumstances have not, in their own
lifetime, had that measure of justice awarded to them by their country
to which they were equally entitled.  I accept it, however, as a boon
justly due to me, and as an equivalent in some degree for that
laborious course of investigation which I had prescribed for myself,
and which, in early life, was carried on under circumstances of
personal exposure and inconvenience, which nothing but a frame of iron
could have supported.  They atone also, in part, for that
disappointment sustained in early life by the speculative habits of one
partner, and the constitutional nervousness of another, which
eventually occasioned my separation from the Calder Iron Works, and
lost me the possession of extensive tracts of Black Band iron-stone,
which I had secured while the value of the discovery was known only to
myself."

Mr. Mushet published the results of his laborious investigations in a
series of papers in the Philosophical Magazine,--afterwards reprinted
in a collected form in 1840 under the title of "Papers on Iron and
Steel."  These papers are among the most valuable original
contributions to the literature of the iron-manufacture that have yet
been given to the world.  They contain the germs of many inventions and
discoveries in iron and steel, some of which were perfected by Mr.
Mushet himself, while others were adopted and worked out by different
experimenters.  In 1798 some of the leading French chemists were
endeavouring to prove by experiment that steel could be made by contact
of the diamond with bar-iron in the crucible, the carbon of the diamond
being liberated and entering into combination with the iron, forming
steel.  In the animated controversy which occurred on the subject, Mr.
Mushet's name was brought into considerable notice; one of the subjects
of his published experiments having been the conversion of bar-iron
into steel in the crucible by contact with regulated proportions of
charcoal.  The experiments which he made in connection with this
controversy, though in themselves unproductive of results, led to the
important discovery by Mr. Mushet of the certain fusibility of
malleable iron at a suitable temperature.

Among the other important results of Mr. Mushet's lifelong labours, the
following may be summarily mentioned:  The preparation of steel from
bar-iron by a direct process, combining the iron with carbon; the
discovery of the beneficial effects of oxide of manganese on iron and
steel; the use of oxides of iron in the puddling-furnace in various
modes of appliance; the production of pig-iron from the blast-furnace,
suitable for puddling, without the intervention of the refinery; and
the application of the hot blast to anthracite coal in iron-smelting.
For the process of combining iron with carbon for the production of
steel, Mr. Mushet took out a patent in November, 1800; and many years
after, when he had discovered the beneficial effects of oxide of
manganese on steel, Mr. Josiah Heath founded upon it his celebrated
patent for the making of cast-steel, which had the effect of raising
the annual production of that metal in Sheffield from 3000 to 100,000
tons.  His application of the hot blast to anthracite coal, after a
process invented by him and adopted by the Messrs. Hill of the Plymouth
Iron Works, South Wales, had the effect of producing savings equal to
about 20,000L. a year at those works; and yet, strange to say, Mr.
Mushet himself never received any consideration for his invention.

The discovery of Titanium by Mr. Mushet in the hearth of a
blast-furnace in 1794 would now be regarded as a mere isolated fact,
inasmuch as Titanium was not placed in the list of recognised metals
until Dr. Wollaston, many years later, ascertained its qualities.  But
in connection with the fact, it may be mentioned that Mr. Mushet's
youngest son, Robert, reasoning on the peculiar circumstances of the
discovery in question, of which ample record is left, has founded upon
it his Titanium process, which is expected by him eventually to
supersede all other methods of manufacturing steel, and to reduce very
materially the cost of its production.

While he lived, Mr. Mushet was a leading authority on all matters
connected with Iron and Steel, and he contributed largely to the
scientific works of his time.  Besides his papers in the Philosophical
Journal, he wrote the article "Iron" for Napiers Supplement to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; and the articles "Blast Furnace" and "Blowing
Machine" for Rees's Cyclopaedia.  The two latter articles had a
considerable influence on the opposition to the intended tax upon iron
in 1807, and were frequently referred to in the discussions on the
subject in Parliament.  Mr. Mushet died in 1847.



[1] Dr. Roebuck's grandson, John Arthur Roebuck, by a singular
coincidence, at present represents Sheffield in the British Parliament.

[2] The carronade was invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth
says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging
68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the
increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result
from such practice.  The first piece of the kind was cast at the Carron
Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in their
possession a small model of this gun, with the inscription:--"Gift of
the Carron Company to Lieutenant-general Melville, inventor of the
smashers and lesser carronades, for solid, ship, shell, and carcass
shot, &c.  First used against French ships in 1779."

[3] Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland
studying the subject of his "Penny Wedding;" and Dugald Stewart found
for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he introduced
in that picture.  But Kinneil House has had its imaginary inhabitants
as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn, once an occupant
of the place, still "haunting" some of the unoccupied chambers.  Dugald
Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was going to bed, of the unearthly
wailings which he himself had heard proceeding from the ancient
apartments; but to him at least they had been explained by the door
opening out upon the roof being blown in on gusty nights, when a
jarring and creaking noise was heard all over the house.  One advantage
derived from the house being "haunted" was, that the garden was never
broken into, and the winter apples and stores were at all times kept
safe from depredation in the apartments of the Lady Lilburn.

[4] Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he did
not know it.  Mr. Ralph Moore, in his "Papers on the Blackband
Ironstones" (Glasgow, 1861), observes:--"Strange to say, he was leaving
behind him, almost as the roof of one of the seams of coal which he
worked, a valuable blackband ironstone, upon which Kinneil Iron Works
are now founded.  The coal-field continued to be worked until the
accidental discovery of the blackband about 1845.  The old coal-pits
are now used for working the ironstone."

[5] The Mushets are an old Kincardine family; but they were almost
extinguished by the plague in the reign of Charles the Second.  Their
numbers were then reduced to two; one of whom remained at Kincardine,
and the other, a clergyman, the Rev. George Mushet, accompanied
Montrose as chaplain.  He is buried in Kincardine churchyard.

[6] Papers on Iron and Steel.  By David Mushet.  London, 1840.

[7] This valuable description of iron ore was discovered by Mr. Mushet,
as he afterwards informs us (Papers on Iron and Steel, 121), in the
year 1801, when crossing the river Calder, in the parish of Old
Monkland.  Having subjected a specimen which he found in the river-bed
to the test of his crucible, he satisfied himself as to its properties,
and proceeded to ascertain its geological position and relations.  He
shortly found that it belonged to the upper part of the coal-formation,
and hence he designated it carboniferous ironstone.  He prosecuted his
researches, and found various rich beds of the mineral distributed
throughout the western counties of Scotland.  On analysis, it was found
to contain a little over 50 per cent.  of protoxide of iron.  The coaly
matter it contained was not its least valuable ingredient; for by the
aid of the hot blast it was afterwards found practicable to smelt it
almost without any addition of coal.  Seams of black band have since
been discovered and successfully worked in Edinburghshire,
Staffordshire, and North Wales.




CHAPTER IX.

INVENTION OF THE HOT BLAST--JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON.

"Whilst the exploits of the conqueror and the intrigues of the
demagogue are faithfully preserved through a succession of ages, the
persevering and unobtrusive efforts of genius, developing the best
blessings of the Deity to man, are often consigned to oblivion."--David
Mushet.


The extraordinary value of the Black Band ironstone was not at first
duly recognised, perhaps not even by Mr. Mushet himself.  For several
years after its discovery by him, its use was confined to the Calder
Iron Works, where it was employed in mixture with other ironstones of
the argillaceous class.  It was afterwards partially used at the Clyde
Iron Works, but nowhere else, a strong feeling of prejudice being
entertained against it on the part of the iron trade generally.  It was
not until the year 1825 that the Monkland Company used it alone,
without any other mixture than the necessary quantity of limestone for
a flux.  "The success of this Company," says Mr. Mushet, "soon gave
rise to the Gartsherrie and Dundyvan furnaces, in the midst of which
progress came the use of raw pit-coal and the Hot Blast--the latter one
of the greatest discoveries in metallurgy of the present age, and,
above every other process, admirably adapted for smelting the Blackband
ironstone."  From the introduction of this process the extraordinary
development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland may be said to date;
and we accordingly propose to devote the present chapter to an account
of its meritorious inventor.

James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a roadside village
about three miles eastward of Glasgow, on the 22nd of June, 1792.  His
parents belonged to the working class.  His father's earnings during
many laborious years of his life did not exceed sixteen shillings a
week.  He had been bred to the trade of a mill-wright, and was for some
time in the employment of Dr. Roebuck as an engine-wright at his
colliery near Boroughstoness.  He was next employed in a like capacity
by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs.
Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was
appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal
Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death.  It was while
working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with his
future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Renfrewshire bleacher, a
woman remarkable through life for her clever, managing, and industrious
habits.  She had the charge of Mrs. Cunningham's children for some time
after the marriage of that lady to Mr. Beaumont, and it was in
compliment to her former mistress and her husband that she named her
youngest son James Beaumont after the latter.

The boy's education was confined to the common elements of reading,
writing, and arithmetic, which he partly acquired at the parish school
of Strathbungo near Glasgow, and partly at the Chapel School, as it was
called, in the Gorbals at Glasgow.  He had finally left school before
he was fourteen.  Some time before he left, he had been partially set
to work, and earned four shillings a week by employing a part of each
day in driving a small condensing engine which his father had put up in
a neighbouring quarry.  After leaving school, he was employed for two
years as a gig boy on one of the winding engines at the Govan colliery.
His parents now considered him of fit age to be apprenticed to some
special trade, and as Beaumont had much of his father's tastes for
mechanical pursuits, it was determined to put him apprentice to a
working engineer.  His elder brother John was then acting as engineman
at Oakbank near Glasgow, and Beaumont was apprenticed under him to
learn the trade.  John was a person of a studious and serious turn of
mind, and had been strongly attracted to follow the example of the
brothers Haldane, who were then exciting great interest by their
preaching throughout the North; but his father set his face against his
son's "preaching at the back o' dikes," as he called it; and so John
quietly settled down to his work.  The engine which the two brothers
managed was a very small one, and the master and apprentice served for
engineman and fireman.  Here the youth worked for three years,
employing his leisure hours in the evenings in remedying the defects of
his early education, and endeavouring to acquire a knowledge of English
grammar, drawing, and mathematics.

On the expiry of his apprenticeship, Beaumont continued for a time to
work under his brother as journeyman at a guinea a week; after which,
in 1814, he entered the employment of William Taylor, coal-master at
Irvine, and he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery at a salary
of from 70L. to 80L. a year.  One of the improvements which he
introduced in the working of the colliery, while he held that office,
was the laying down of an edge railway of cast-iron, in lengths of
three feet, from the pit to the harbour of Irvine, a distance of three
miles.  At the age of 23 he married his first wife, Barbara
Montgomerie, an Irvine lass, with a "tocher" of 250L.  This little
provision was all the more serviceable to him, as his master, Taylor,
becoming unfortunate in business, he was suddenly thrown out of
employment, and the little fortune enabled the newly-married pair to
hold their heads above water till better days came round.  They took a
humble tenement, consisting of a room and a kitchen, in the Cowcaddens,
Glasgow, where their first child was born.

About this time a gas-work, the first in Glasgow, was projected, and
the company having been formed, the directors advertised for a
superintendent and foreman, to whom they offered a "liberal salary."
Though Beaumont had never seen gaslight before, except at the
illumination of his father's colliery office after the Peace of Amiens,
which was accomplished in a very simple and original manner, without
either condenser, purifier, or gas-holder, and though he knew nothing
of the art of gas-making, he had the courage to apply for the
situation.  He was one of twenty candidates, and the fortunate one; and
in August, 1817, we find him appointed foreman of the Glasgow Gasworks,
for five years, at the salary of 90L. a year.  Before the expiry of his
term he was reappointed for six years more, at the advanced salary of
200L., with the status of manager and engineer of the works.  His
salary was gradually increased to 400L. a year, with a free
dwelling-house, until 1847, when, after a faithful service of thirty
years, during which he had largely extended the central works, and
erected branch works in Tradeston and Partick, he finally resigned the
management.

The situation of manager of the Glasgow Gas-works was in many respects
well suited for the development of Mr. Neilson's peculiar abilities.
In the first place it afforded him facilities for obtaining theoretical
as well as practical knowledge in Chemical Science, of which he was a
diligent student at the Andersonian University, as well as of Natural
Philosophy and Mathematics in their higher branches.  In the next place
it gave free scope for his ingenuity in introducing improvements in the
manufacture of gas, then in its infancy.  He was the first to employ
clay retorts; and he introduced sulphate of iron as a self-acting
purifier, passing the gas through beds of charcoal to remove its oily
and tarry elements.  The swallow-tail or union jet was also his
invention, and it has since come into general use.

While managing the Gas-works, one of Mr. Neilson's labours of love was
the establishment and direction by him of a Workmen's Institution for
mutual improvement.  Having been a workman himself, and experienced the
disadvantages of an imperfect education in early life, as well as the
benefits arising from improved culture in later years, he desired to
impart some of these advantages to the workmen in his employment, who
consisted chiefly of persons from remote parts of the Highlands or from
Ireland.  Most of them could not even read, and his principal
difficulty consisted in persuading them that it was of any use to
learn.  For some time they resisted his persuasions to form a Workmen's
Institution, with a view to the establishment of a library, classes,
and lectures, urging as a sufficient plea for not joining it, that they
could not read, and that books would be of no use to them.  At last Mr.
Neilson succeeded, though with considerable difficulty, in inducing
fourteen of the workmen to adopt his plan.  Each member was to
contribute a small sum monthly, to be laid out in books, the Gas
Company providing the members with a comfortable room in which they
might meet to read and converse in the evenings instead of going to the
alehouse.  The members were afterwards allowed to take the books home
to read, and the room was used for the purpose of conversation on the
subjects of the books read by them, and occasionally for lectures
delivered by the members themselves on geography, arithmetic,
chemistry, and mechanics.  Their numbers increased so that the room in
which they met became insufficient for their accommodation, when the
Gas Company provided them with a new and larger place of meeting,
together with a laboratory and workshop.  In the former they studied
practical chemistry, and in the latter they studied practical
mechanics, making for themselves an air pump and an electrifying
machine, as well as preparing the various models used in the course of
the lectures.  The effects on the workmen were eminently beneficial,
and the institution came to be cited as among the most valuable of its
kind in the kingdom.[1]

Mr. Neilson throughout watched carefully over its working, and exerted
himself in all ways to promote its usefulness, in which he had the
zealous co-operation of the leading workmen themselves, and the
gratitude of all.  On the opening of the new and enlarged rooms in
1825, we find him delivering an admirable address, which was thought
worthy of republication, together with the reply of George Sutherland,
one of the workmen, in which Mr. Neilson's exertions as its founder and
chief supporter were gratefully and forcibly expressed.[2]

It was during the period of his connection with the Glasgow Gas-works
that Mr. Neilson directed his attention to the smelting of iron.  His
views in regard to the subject were at first somewhat crude, as appears
from a paper read by him before the Glasgow Philosophical Society early
in 1825.  It appears that in the course of the preceding year his
attention had been called to the subject by an iron-maker, who asked
him if he thought it possible to purify the air blown into the blast
furnaces, in like manner as carburetted hydrogen gas was purified.  The
ironmaster supposed that it was the presence of sulphur in the air that
caused blast-furnaces to work irregularly, and to make bad iron in the
summer months.  Mr. Neilson was of opinion that this was not the true
cause, and he was rather disposed to think it attributable to the want
of a due proportion of oxygen in summer, when the air was more
rarefied, besides containing more aqueous vapour than in winter.  He
therefore thought the true remedy was in some way or other to throw in
a greater proportion of oxygen; and he suggested that, in order to dry
the air, it should be passed, on its way to the furnace, through two
long tunnels containing calcined lime.  But further inquiry served to
correct his views, and eventually led him to the true theory of
blasting.

Shortly after, his attention was directed by Mr. James Ewing to a
defect in one of the Muirkirk blast-furnaces, situated about half a
mile distant from the blowing-engine, which was found not to work so
well as others which were situated close to it.  The circumstances of
the case led Mr. Neilson to form the opinion that, as air increases in
volume according to temperature, if he were to heat it by passing it
through a red-hot vessel, its volume would be increased, according to
the well-known law, and the blast might thus be enabled to do more duty
in the distant furnace.  He proceeded to make a series of experiments
at the Gas-works, trying the effect of heated air on the illuminating
power of gas, by bringing up a stream of it in a tube so as to surround
the gas-burner.  He found that by this means the combustion of the gas
was rendered more intense, and its illuminating power greatly
increased.  He proceeded to try a similar experiment on a common
smith's fire, by blowing the fire with heated air, and the effect was
the same; the fire was much more brilliant, and accompanied by an
unusually intense degree of heat.

Having obtained such marked results by these small experiments, it
naturally occurred to him that a similar increase in intensity of
combustion and temperature would attend the application of the process
to the blast-furnace on a large scale; but being only a gas-maker, he
had the greatest difficulty in persuading any ironmaster to permit him
to make the necessary experiment's with blast-furnaces actually at
work.  Besides, his theory was altogether at variance with the
established practice, which was to supply air as cold as possible, the
prevailing idea being that the coldness of the air in winter was the
cause of the best iron being then produced.  Acting on these views, the
efforts of the ironmasters had always been directed to the cooling of
the blast, and various expedients were devised for the purpose.  Thus
the regulator was painted white, as being the coolest colour; the air
was passed over cold water, and in some cases the air pipes were even
surrounded by ice, all with the object of keeping the blast cold.
When, therefore, Mr. Neilson proposed entirely to reverse the process,
and to employ hot instead of cold blast, the incredulity of the
ironmasters may well be imagined.  What!  Neilson, a mere maker of gas,
undertake to instruct practical men in the manufacture of iron!  And to
suppose that heated air can be used for the purpose!  It was
presumption in the extreme, or at best the mere visionary idea of a
person altogether unacquainted with the subject!

At length, however, Mr. Neilson succeeded in inducing Mr. Charles
Macintosh of Crossbasket, and Mr. Colin Dunlop of the Clyde Iron Works,
to allow him to make a trial of the hot air process.  In the first
imperfect attempts the air was heated to little more than 80 degrees
Fahrenheit, yet the results were satisfactory, and the scoriae from the
furnace evidently contained less iron.  He was therefore desirous of
trying his plan upon a more extensive scale, with the object, if
possible, of thoroughly establishing the soundness of his principle.
In this he was a good deal hampered even by those ironmasters who were
his friends, and had promised him the requisite opportunities for
making a fair trial of the new process.  They strongly objected to his
making the necessary alterations in the furnaces, and he seemed to be
as far from a satisfactory experiment as ever.  In one instance, where
he had so far succeeded as to be allowed to heat the blast-main, he
asked permission to introduce deflecting plates in the main or to put a
bend in the pipe, so as to bring the blast more closely against the
heated sides of the pipe, and also increase the area of heating
surface, in order to raise the temperature to a higher point; but this
was refused, and it was said that if even a bend were put in the pipe
the furnace would stop working.  These prejudices proved a serious
difficulty in the way of our inventor, and several more years passed
before he was allowed to put a bend in the blast-main.  After many
years of perseverance, he was, however, at length enabled to work out
his plan into a definite shape at the Clyde Iron Works, and its
practical value was at once admitted.  At the meeting of the Mechanical
Engineers' Society held in May, 1859, Mr. Neilson explained that his
invention consisted solely in the principle of heating the blast
between the engine and the furnace, and was not associated with any
particular construction of the intermediate heating apparatus.  This,
he said, was the cause of its success; and in some respects it
resembled the invention of his countryman, James Watt, who, in
connection with the steam-engine, invented the plan of condensing the
steam in a separate vessel, and was successful in maintaining his
invention by not limiting it to any particular construction of the
condenser.  On the same occasion he took the opportunity of
acknowledging the firmness with which the English ironmasters had stood
by him when attempts were made to deprive him of the benefits of his
invention; and to them he acknowledged he was mainly indebted for the
successful issue of the severe contests he had to undergo.  For there
were, of course, certain of the ironmasters, both English and Scotch,
supporters of the cause of free trade in others' inventions, who sought
to resist the patent, after it had come into general use, and had been
recognised as one of the most valuable improvements of modern times.[3]

The patent was secured in 1828 for a term of fourteen years; but, as
Mr. Neilson did not himself possess the requisite capital to enable him
to perfect the invention, or to defend it if attacked, he found it
necessary to invite other gentlemen, able to support him in these
respects, to share its profits; retaining for himself only three-tenths
of the whole.  His partners were Mr. Charles Macintosh, Mr. Colin
Dunlop, and Mr. John Wilson of Dundyvan.  The charge made by them was
only a shilling a ton for all iron produced by the new process; this
low rate being fixed in order to ensure the introduction of the patent
into general use, as well as to reduce to a minimum the temptations of
the ironmasters to infringe it.

The first trials of the process were made at the blast-furnaces of
Clyde and Calder; from whence the use of the hot blast gradually
extended to the other iron-mining districts.  In the course of a few
years every furnace in Scotland, with one exception (that at Carron),
had adopted the improvement; while it was also employed in half the
furnaces of England and Wales, and in many of the furnaces on the
Continent and in America.  In course of time, and with increasing
experience, various improvements were introduced in the process, more
particularly in the shape of the air-heating vessels; the last form
adopted being that of a congeries of tubes, similar to the tubular
arrangement in the boiler of the locomotive, by which the greatest
extent of heating surface was provided for the thorough heating of the
air.  By these modifications the temperature of the air introduced into
the furnace has been raised from 240 degrees to 600 degrees, or the
temperature of melting lead.  To protect the nozzle of the air-pipe as
it entered the furnace against the action of the intense heat to which
it was subjected, a spiral pipe for a stream of cold water constantly
to play in has been introduced within the sides of the iron tuyere
through which the nozzle passes; by which means the tuyere is kept
comparatively cool, while the nozzle of the air-pipe is effectually
protected.[4]

This valuable invention did not escape the usual fate of successful
patents, and it was on several occasions the subject of protracted
litigation.  The first action occurred in 1832; but the objectors
shortly gave in, and renewed their licence.  In 1839, when the process
had become generally adopted throughout Scotland, and, indeed, was
found absolutely essential for smelting the peculiar ores of that
country--more especially Mushet's Black Band--a powerful combination
was formed amongst the ironmasters to resist the patent.  The
litigation which ensued extended over five years, during which period
some twenty actions were proceeding in Scotland, and several in
England.  Three juries sat upon the subject at different times, and on
three occasions appeals were carried to the House of Lords.  One jury
trial occupied ten days, during which a hundred and two witnesses were
examined; the law costs on both sides amounting, it is supposed, to at
least 40,000L.  The result was, that the novelty and merit of Mr.
Neilson's invention were finally established, and he was secured in the
enjoyment of the patent right.

We are gratified to add, that, though Mr. Neilson had to part with
two-thirds of the profits of the invention to secure the capital and
influence necessary to bring it into general use, he realized
sufficient to enable him to enjoy the evening of his life in peace and
comfort.  He retired from active business to an estate which he
purchased in 1851 in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, where he is found
ready to lend a hand in every good work--whether in agricultural
improvement, railway extension, or the moral and social good of those
about him.  Mindful of the success of his Workmen's Institution at the
Glasgow Gas-Works, he has, almost at his own door, erected a similar
Institution for the use of the parish in which his property is
situated, the beneficial effects of which have been very marked in the
district.  We may add that Mr. Neilson's merits have been recognised by
many eminent bodies--by the Institution of Civil Engineers, the
Chemical Society, and others--the last honour conferred on him being
his election as a Member of the Royal Society in 1846.

The invention of the hot blast, in conjunction with the discovery of
the Black Band ironstone, has had an extra ordinary effect upon the
development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland.  The coals of that
country are generally unfit for coking, and lose as much as 55 per
cent. in the process.  But by using the hot blast, the coal could be
sent to the blast-furnace in its raw state, by which a large saving of
fuel was effected.[5]  Even coals of an inferior quality were by its
means made available for the manufacture of iron.  But one of the
peculiar qualities of the Black Band ironstone is that in many cases it
contains sufficient coaly matter for purposes of calcination, without
any admixture of coal whatever.  Before its discovery, all the iron
manufactured in Scotland was made from clay-band; but the use of the
latter has in a great measure been discontinued wherever a sufficient
supply of Black Band can be obtained.  And it is found to exist very
extensively in most of the midland Scotch counties,--the coal and iron
measures stretching in a broad belt from the Firth of Forth to the
Irish Channel at the Firth of Clyde.  At the time when the hot blast
was invented, the fortunes of many of the older works were at a low
ebb, and several of them had been discontinued; but they were speedily
brought to life again wherever Black Band could be found.  In 1829, the
year after Neilson's patent was taken out, the total make of Scotland
was 29,000 tons.  As fresh discoveries of the mineral were made, in
Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, new works were erected, until, in 1845, we
find the production of Scotch pig-iron had increased to 475,000 tons.
It has since increased to upwards of a million of tons,
nineteen-twentieths of which are made from Black Band ironstone.[6]