Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/181

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during the century following the erection of the first iron-works at Lynn, in 1645, or were coeval therewith. We now purpose to describe the early ways and means, and some of the more important improvements thereon, by which "blooms" produced by either of the before-mentioned methods were shaped into bars and rods of various forms and dimensions. The simplest means used for this purpose consisted of a hammer wielded by the muscular energy of a blacksmith.