Industrial Biography

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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 modem times.*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet described it as "a wonderful discovery," and one of the
"most novel and beautiful improvements in his time." Professor
Gregory of Aberdeen characterized it as "the greatest improvement
with which he was acquainted." Mr. Jessop, an extensive English iron
manufacturer, declared it to be "of as great advantage in the iron
trade as Arkwright's machinery was in the cotton-spinning trade; and
Mr. Fairbairn, in his contribution on "Iron" in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, says that it "has effected an entire revolution in the
iron industry of Great Britain, and forms the last era in the history
of this material."
...]

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.*
[footnote...
The invention of the tubular air-vessels and the water-tuyere
belongs, we believe, to Mr. John Condie, sometime manager of the
Blair Iron Works.
...]

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.*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet says, "The greatest produce in iron per furnace with the
Black Band and cold blast never exceeded 60 tons a-week. The produce
per furnace now averages 90 tons a-week. Ten tons of this I attribute
to the use of raw pit-coal, and the other twenty tons to the use of
hot blast." [Papers on Iron and Steel, 127.] The produce per furnace
is now 200 tons a-week and upwards. The hot blast process was
afterwards applied to the making of iron with the anthracite or stone
coal of Wales; for which a patent was taken out by George Crane in
1836. Before the hot blast was introduced, anthracite coal would not
act as fuel in the blast-furnace. When put in, it merely had the
effect of putting the fire out. With the aid of the hot blast,
however, it now proves to be a most valuable fuel in smelting.
...]
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.*
[footnote...
It is stated in the North British Review for Nov. 1845, that "As in
Scotland every furnace--with the exception of one at Carron--now uses
the hot blast the saving on our present produce of 400,000 tons of
pig-iron is 2,000,000 tons of coals, 200,000 tons of limestone, and
#650,000 sterling per annum." But as the Scotch produce is now above
a million tons of pig-iron a year, the above figures will have to be
multiplied by 2 1/2 to give the present annual savings.
...]

Employment has thus been given to vast numbers of our industrial
population, and the wealth and resources of the Scotch iron districts
have been increased to an extraordinary extent. During the last year
there were 125 furnaces in blast throughout Scotland, each employing
about 400 men in making an average of 200 tons a week; and the money
distributed amongst the workmen may readily be computed from the fact
that, under the most favourable circumstances, the cost of making
iron in wages alone amounts to 36s. a-ton.*
[footnote...
Papers read by Mr. Ralph Moore, Mining Engineer, Glasgow, before the
Royal Scottish Society of Arts, Edin. 1861, pp. 13, 14.
...]

An immense additional value was given to all land in which the Black
Band was found. Mr. Mushet mentions that in 1839 the proprietor of
the Airdrie estate derived a royalty of 16,500L. from the mineral,
which had not before its discovery yielded him one farthing. At the
same time, many fortunes have been made by pushing and energetic men
who have of late years entered upon this new branch of industry.
Amongst these may be mentioned the Bairds of Gartsherrie, who vie
with the Guests and Crawshays of South Wales, and have advanced
themselves in the course of a very few years from the station of
small farmers to that of great capitalists owning estates in many
counties, holding the highest character commercial men, and ranking
among the largest employers of labour in the kingdom.

CHAPTER X.

MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS.

"L'invention nest-elle pas la poesie de la science? . . . Toutes les
grandes decouvertes portent avec elles la trace ineffacable d'une
pensee poetique. ll faut etre poete pour creer. Aussi, sommes-nous
convaincus que si les puissantes machines, veritable source de la
production et de l'industrie de nos jours, doivent recevoir des
modifications radicales, ce sera a des hommes d'imagination, et non
point a dea hommes purement speciaux, que l'on devra cette
transformation."--E. M. BATAILLE, Tr aite des Machines a Vapeur.

Tools have played a highly important part in the history of
civilization. Without tools and the ability to use them, man were
indeed but a "poor, bare, forked animal,"--worse clothed than the
birds, worse housed than the beaver, worse fed than the jackal. "Weak
in himself," says Carlyle, "and of small stature, he stands on a
basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half square foot,
insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, Jest the very wind
supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load
for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste rag.
Nevertheless he can use tools, can devise tools: with these the
granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing
iron as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and
fire his unvarying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools:
without tools he is nothing; with tools he is all." His very first
contrivances to support life were tools of the simplest and rudest
construction; and his latest achievements in the substitution of
machinery for the relief of the human hand and intellect are founded
on the use of tools of a still higher order. Hence it is not without
good reason that man has by some philosophers been defined as A
TOOL-MAKING ANIMAL.

Tools, like everything else, had small beginnings. With the primitive
stone-hammer and chisel very little could be done. The felling of a
tree would occupy a workman a month, unless helped by the destructive
action of fire. Dwellings could not be built, the soil could not be
tilled, clothes could not be fashioned and made, and the hewing out
of a boat was so tedious a process that the wood must have been far
gone in decay before it could be launched. It was a great step in
advance to discover the art of working in metals, more especially in
steel, one of the few metals capable of taking a sharp edge and
keeping it. From the date of this discovery, working in wood and
stone would be found comparatively easy; and the results must
speedily have been felt not only in the improvement of man's daily
food, but in his domestic and social condition. Clothing could then
be made, the primitive forest could be cleared and tillage carried
on; abundant fuel could be obtained, dwellings erected, ships built,
temples reared; every improvement in tools marking a new step in the
development of the human intellect, and a further stage in the
progress of human civilization.

The earliest tools were of the simplest possible character,
consisting principally of modifications of the wedge; such as the
knife, the shears (formed of two knives working on a joint), the
chisel, and the axe. These, with the primitive hammer, formed the
principal stock-in-trade of the early mechanics, who were
handicraftsmen in the literal sense of the word. But the work which
the early craftsmen in wood, stone, brass, and iron, contrived to
execute, sufficed to show how much expertness in the handling of
tools will serve to compensate for their mechanical imperfections.
Workmen then sought rather to aid muscular strength than to supersede
it, and mainly to facilitate the efforts of manual skill. Another
tool became added to those mentioned above, which proved an
additional source of power to the workman. We mean the Saw, which was
considered of so much importance that its inventor was honoured with
a place among the gods in the mythology of the Greeks. This invention
is said to have been suggested by the arrangement of the teeth in the
jaw of a serpent, used by Talus the nephew of Daedalus in dividing a
piece of wood. From the representations of ancient tools found in the
paintings at Herculaneum it appears that the frame-saw used by the
ancients very nearly resembled that still in use; and we are informed
that the tools employed in the carpenters' shops at Nazareth at this
day are in most respects the same as those represented in the buried
Roman city. Another very ancient tool referred to in the Bible and in
Homer was the File, which was used to sharpen weapons and implements.
Thus the Hebrews "had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters,
and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads."*
[footnote...
1 Samuel, ch. xiii. v. 21.
...]
When to these we add the adze, plane-irons, the anger, and the
chisel, we sum up the tools principally relied on by the early
mechanics for working in wood and iron.

Such continued to be the chief tools in use down almost to our own
day. The smith was at first the principal tool-maker; but special
branches of trade were gradually established, devoted to tool-making.
So long, however, as the workman relied mainly on his dexterity of
hand, the amount of production was comparatively limited; for the
number of skilled workmen was but small. The articles turned out by
them, being the product of tedious manual labour, were too dear to
come into common use, and were made almost exclusively for the richer
classes of the community. It was not until machinery had been
invented and become generally adopted that many of the ordinary
articles of necessity and of comfort were produced in sufficient
abundance and at such prices as enabled them to enter into the
consumption of the great body of the people.

But every improver of tools had a long and difficult battle to fight;
for any improvement in their effective power was sure to touch the
interests of some established craft. Especially was this the case
with machines, which are but tools of a more complete though
complicated kind than those above described.

Take, for instance, the case of the Saw. The tedious drudgery of
dividing timber by the old fashioned hand-saw is well known. To avoid
it, some ingenious person suggested that a number of saws should be
fixed to a frame in a mill, so contrived as to work with a
reciprocating motion, upwards and downwards, or backwards and
forwards, and that this frame so mounted should be yoked to the mill
wheel, and the saws driven by the power of wind or water. The plan
was tried, and, as may readily be imagined, the amount of effective
work done by this machine-saw was immense, compared with the tedious
process of sawing by hand.

It will be observed, however, that the new method must have seriously
interfered with the labour of the hand-sawyers; and it was but
natural that they should regard the establishment of the saw-mills
with suspicion and hostility. Hence a long period elapsed before the
hand-sawyers would permit the new machinery to be set up and worked.
The first saw-mill in England was erected by a Dutchman, near London,
in 1663, but was shortly abandoned in consequence of the determined
hostility of the workmen. More than a century passed before a second
saw-mill was set up; when, in 1767, Mr. John Houghton, a London
timber-merchant, by the desire and with the approbation of the
Society of Arts, erected one at Limehouse, to be driven by wind. The
work was directed by one James Stansfield, who had gone over to
Holland for the purpose of learning the art of constructing and
managing the sawing machinery. But the mill was no sooner erected
than a mob assembled and razed it to the ground. The principal
rioters having been punished, and the loss to the proprietor having
been made good by the nation, a new mill was shortly after built, and
it was suffered to work without further molestation.

Improved methods of manufacture have usually had to encounter the
same kind of opposition. Thus, when the Flemish weavers came over to
England in the seventeenth century, bringing with them their skill
and their industry, they excited great jealousy and hostility amongst
the native workmen. Their competition as workmen was resented as an
injury, but their improved machinery was regarded as a far greater
source of mischief. In a memorial presented to the king in 1621 we
find the London weavers complaining of the foreigners' competition,
but especially that "they have made so bould of late as to devise
engines for working of tape, lace, ribbin, and such like, wherein one
man doth more among them than 7 Englishe men can doe; so as their
cheap sale of commodities beggereth all our Englishe artificers of
that trade, and enricheth them."*
[footnote...
State Papers, Dom. 1621, Vol. 88, No. 112.
...]

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