The multifarious use of iron in our day has given its name to the age.
We have got far beyond the primitive applications of that metal--every
day it is supplanting some other substance, and there is no saying where
the wide-spread and varied service we exact from it will stop. The
invention of the steam-engine, and the improvement of manufacturing
machines, would be comparatively valueless, unless we had at command a
cheap and abundant supply of iron for their construction. The land is
covered with a net-work of iron rails, traversed by iron steeds--gulfs
and valleys are spanned by iron arches and iron tubes--huge ships of
iron ride upon the deep. Even stones and bricks are being discarded for
this all-useful substance, and of iron we are building houses, palaces,
theatres, churches, and spacious domes. There is no end to its uses.
And yet, it is only between seventy and eighty years ago since Britain,
the richest of all countries in native ore, was dependent upon others
for her supply of the manufactured metal. We wanted but little iron in
those days, compared with the present demand, and yet that little we
could not furnish ourselves with. As much as a million and a half
a-year went out of our pockets to purchase wrought iron from Sweden
alone, and we were good customers to Russia as well. All the iron that
our country could then produce was some 17,000 tons. The man who showed
us how to turn our own ore to account, who rendered us independent of
all other countries for our supply, and made us the great purveyors of
wrought iron to the world, who opened up to us this great source of
national wealth, was Henry Cort of Gosport.
The great difficulty which he solved was how to get wrought iron out of
the crude iron as it came from the smelting furnace, without using
charcoal. With but a small tract of country, densely peopled, we had but
a scant supply of wood at our command. The great forests which once
overspread the land were gradually vanishing, partly before the spread
of population and the growth of towns, and partly from the inroads made
on them by the demand for timber. Formerly, the first transformation of
the ore into pig iron (the crude form of the manufactured metal) was
effected by means of wood; and the consumption was so great that an Act
was passed in 1581 restraining its use. Soon afterwards Lord Dudley
discovered that coal would answer the purpose just as well, and obtained
a patent of monopoly. He reaped but little profit from his invention,
however, for his iron-works were destroyed by a mob; and it was not till
a century afterwards, when people got more alarmed at the growing
scarcity of timber, and the increased demand for it, that the plan was
generally adopted. This was one step in the right direction, but another
yet remained to be made, for the manufacture was still hampered in our
country by the want of wood for the second process--the conversion of
crude into malleable iron, in which state alone it is fit for service.
About the year 1785, Henry Cort, iron-master, of Gosport, after many
years of patient and wearisome research, of anxious thought, and
indefatigable experiment, in which he spent a private fortune of some
L20,000, perfected a couple of inventions of priceless value. The first
was the process of converting pig iron into wrought iron by the flame of
pit coal in a puddling furnace, thus dispensing with the use of
charcoal,--the cost and scarcity of which had before formed such a dead
weight on the trade, and placed us at such a disadvantage compared with
Sweden and Russia. The second was a further process for drawing the iron
into bars by means of grooved rollers. Till then, this operation had to
be performed with hammer and anvil, and was very tedious and laborious.
The new system not only reduced the cost and labour of producing iron to
one-twentieth of what they were previously, but greatly improved the
quality of the article produced.
It is not easy to estimate all that Henry Cort's inventions have done
for this country. Without them we should have lost an overflowing and
inexhaustible source of national wealth, and, moreover, large sums would
have been taken out of the country in the purchase of wrought metal; we
should never have been able to give full scope to the great mechanical
inventions brought forth towards the close of the last, and the opening
of the present century; we should have been debarred from taking rank as
the great engineers and engine-makers for the rest of the world. The
direct gain to this country from the inventions of Henry Cort, which
enabled us to work up our own iron, has been calculated as equal by this
time to not less than a hundred millions; and it is hardly possible to
exaggerate the benefits which it has conferred. Lord Sheffield's
prophecy, that the adoption of these processes would be worth more to
Britain than a dozen colonies, may be said to have been fulfilled.
Like many another benefactor of his country, Cort got little good out of
his invention for himself. He took out a patent for his process, and
arranged with the leading iron-masters to accept a royalty of ten
shillings a ton for the use of them. With a large fortune in prospect,
his purse was just then exhausted by the expenses he had incurred in
experiments and researches; and he had to look out for a capitalist to
aid him in working the patent on his own account. As ill luck would
have it, he entered into partnership with a certain Adam Jellicoe, then
deputy-paymaster of the navy. Jellicoe was considered a man of
substance, and a "thoroughly respectable" character. He was to advance
the ready money, and to receive in return half of the profits of the
trade, Cort assigning to him, by way of collateral security, his patent
rights. For a year or two all went well. The patent was everywhere
adopted, and Cort's own iron works drove a lucrative and growing trade.
He seemed in a fair way of getting back the fortune he had spent in
bringing out the inventions, doubled or trebled, as he well deserved.
The respectable Jellicoe was seized with a mortal sickness: at his death
his desk was filled by another, his books were examined, and it turned
out that he had been robbing the government for many a year back, and
was a large defaulter. Cort, of course, had nothing to do with this
villany, but he had to pay the penalty of it. As Jellicoe's partner he
was responsible, in those days of unlimited liability, for all
Jellicoe's debts; but that was not the worst of it. The treasurer of the
navy was not content to exact only the payment of Jellicoe's
defalcations, as he had no doubt a right to do, but confiscated the
whole of Cort's patent rights, business, and property, which would have
paid the debt seven or eight times over, had it been fairly valued.
This incident has never been properly cleared up, but what glimpses of
its secret passages have been obtained, seem to indicate clearly enough
that poor Cort was the victim, not of one, but of two or more swindlers.
To the day of his death he never could obtain a distinct account of the
proceedings; and when, after his death, a Royal Commission was appointed
to inquire into the matter, the treasurer of the navy and his deputy
took care, a week or two before the Commission met, to indemnify each
other by a joint release, and to burn their accounts for upwards of a
million and a half of public money, for the application of which they
were responsible, as well as all papers relating to Cort's case. When
the Commission met, and the treasurer and his deputy were called before
it, they refused to answer questions which would criminate themselves.
His connection with Jellicoe was, of course, the ruin of Henry Cort. He
had no means of re-establishing himself in business; he was robbed of
all income from his patents; and he died ruined and broken-hearted ten
years after, leaving a family of nine children, without a sixpence in
the world. Four of these children now survive--old, infirm, and
indigent--only saved from being dependent upon parish bounty by
pensions, amounting in the aggregate to L90 per annum. Well may it be
said, "There should be more gratitude in our Iron Age to the children of
HENRY CORT."
The Electric Telegraph.
I.--MR. COOKE.
II.--PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE.
III.--THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.
The Electric Telegraph.
"Speak the word and think the thought,
Quick 'tis as with lightning caught--
Over, under lands or seas,
To the far antipodes;
Here again, as soon as gone,
Making all the earth as one;
Moscow speaks at twelve o'clock,--
London reads ere noon the shock."