the furnace is tapped, and the stream of liquid iron flows out into
moulds formed in the sand, making the iron into pigs--so called from a
fancied resemblance to the form of these animals. This makes the first
process, and in many smelting-establishments this is all that is done,
the iron in this form being sold and entering into the general
consumption.

The next process is "boiling," which is a modification of "puddling,"
and is generally used in the best iron-works in this country. The
process of puddling was invented by Henry Cort, an Englishman, and
patented by him in 1783 and 1784 as a new process for "shingling,
welding and manufacturing iron and steel into bars, plates and rods of
purer quality and in larger quantity than heretofore, by a more
effectual application of fire and machinery." For this invention Cort
has been called "the father of the iron-trade of the British nation,"
and it is estimated that his invention has, during this century, given
employment to six millions of persons, and increased the wealth of Great
Britain by three thousand millions of dollars. In his experiments for
perfecting his process Mr. Cort spent his fortune, and though it proved
so valuable, he died poor, having been involved by the government in a
lawsuit concerning his patent which beggared him. Six years before his
death, the government, as an acknowledgment of their wrong, granted him
a yearly pension of a thousand dollars, and at his death this miserly
recompense was reduced to his widow to six hundred and twenty-five
dollars.

[Illustration: ROTARY SQUEEZER.]

[Illustration: BOILING-FURNACE.]