what were the first words Susan Richard

I can spin it, scour and bleach it the best I know how, weave it, and if I don't make Tom Breslaw as ha

shoulders, Sally but a few inches. They now began to carry the iron to the shop. Clem and Rob took each an end of the churn-drill, but the girls insisted on taking hold in the middle, and entirely monopolized the conveyance of the drills, wedges, an

s of the kitchen shovel and tongs he had bought to repair his wife's t

open order on muster-day for the sake of show, reflecting in what way he should make the most of his treasures, when Clem, who had been examining the drills wit

what is

is reflections, neither hea

Robert. "It's what makes father's axe

do. But what makes steel cut any m

e it's

g

eat deal about

s?" said the fat

steel,

refined and hardened, s

they do

w; it's done

mper stay th

f you heat it, but if you put it in

urn the handle out of your axe, put

t to heat the steel

t you put it into cold wa

I prefer to let well enough alone; if I spoiled it, I should hav

axe in the fire with no cloth on it, nor nothing, an

broke, and I couldn't do anything with it; so I thought, as it was of no use as it was, I might as well try to draw

you tell mother you mean

That's what I got th

you spo

l, a good many,

e you learn. Can I se

shall want yo

can learn

uess

there's a man in the steel what

st have a pretty wa

arn and I learn, can

too?" sa

I gues

us, if a good-looking, nice-feeling boy in[Pg 67] the high school, being asked what made his kn

few things in relation to i

and is taken off. This is cast iron; you see pigs of it piled up on the wharves in seaports, the outside incrusted with the sand in which it was run, and looking as rough, some of it, as the cinders of a smith's forge. It is highly charged with carbon, coarse, hard, and brittle; can neither be filed, welded, nor worked, under the hammer; is more or less filled with slag and other impurities, and fit on

ich from the iron has cost so much labor. Should I give you the defi

other elements. Charcoal is solid carbon in a nearly pure state. Carbon has so strong an affinity for oxygen, that when an

in, to pass off in the same way; the object of the frequent meltings and the hammering is to expose new surfaces to contact with the o

r the hammer into a thousand different shapes at the will of the smith; may be drawn into wire so fine as to be woven in a loom or made into a watch spring that weighs only the tenth of a grain, and rolled into leaves as thin as paper, insomuch that a pound of raw iron costing a cent affords steel sufficient for seventy thousand watches, worth one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. It is, however, too soft to form a cut

t n

are laid upon this mixture half an inch apart, to the amount, perhaps, of twelve[Pg 70] tons, and covered with charcoal; then another layer of iron and more charcoal, till the trough is full. The top is covered with cement that has been used b

the oxygen of the air, it enters the pores of the iron and impregnates it. The fire is now suffered to die out, and the metal is taken from the troughs. It is no lo

ion. It is said that Andrew of Ferrara manufactured swords so elastic, that the point of the blade would bend to touch the hilt, and spring back again uninjured. The quality of steel depends upon the quality of the iron from which it[Pg 71] is made. The English ha

so attempered as to pierce the hardest rocks and crush the hardest stones; that may be welded to iron, and thus economized. Do you think it strange that Will Richards

s, some thought

material to take carbon from iron, and th

st iron, and so it is all taken out

e cast iron, leave just enough in, an

ends of which are left protruding from the troughs. When, upon drawing one of them out, it is found to be blistered, the process is done. Although blistered steel be so superior to iron, it has imperfections, that impair the quality o

a hammer worked by machinery, and drawn into bars, which closes up all the fissures and renders it tough and compact. It is now called shear steel, because shears for dressing cloth were[Pg 73] made of it, and it will take a better polish than blistered steel. But the process is not yet completed. Bars of blistered steel that have been the most highly charged with carbon, and are therefore the hardest, are broken into short pieces,-those being put together that are of a like hardness,-and placed in pots of fire-clay, about thirty pounds in a pot, with covers fitting perfectly tight. The pots are

tle. The higher the temperature, and the more suddenly it is cooled, the harder and more brittle it becomes. It is this quality that renders steel the "king of metals," and has g

e, as he could upon occasion get one of his neighbors to strike for him. John Bradford lived nearest: he knew that John would be glad to accommodate him,

e face end of a sledge. He then partially formed the "pean," or top portion, that in a smith's sledge is wedge-shaped. He wished to punch the hole for the handle before cutting off the rest of the drill, in order to hold it by that part, as he

g

all the hotter, blew up the fire, and treated it just as he would a piece of wrought iron. The drill had been imported from England,-as were nearly all the tools in that day,-was pointed with the best of double shear steel, and hardened all that

omething to learn that steel will not bear so much heat as iron. Afraid to meddle with the other end of the drill, he resolved, since it needed very little alte

spoiled plenty of steel when he was appren

g

tched it narrowly, put on plenty of sand, and bef

is not so much harder than iron. He was ignorant of a fact most important to a smith, and by the knowledge of which he is enabled to produce any degree of temper he pleases, after practice and exp

ite soft, and supposed it needed hardening. Heating it as hot as he dared, he plunged

upied in placing the iron and punch, and instructing the boys how to hold both, that it had cooled, and become harder to punch; nevertheless, he resolv

ing the blank look of his father, began

unch so hard. Didn't I know that I could punch

e. By patient perseverance, and after many ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in learning to weld steel to iron, and made himself several pairs of tongs of different shapes an

day about it, and had nothing better to pare the hoof than a jack-knife. No matte

ype="