Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/467

Rh America. He died at Catasauqua on June 20, 1882, in his eighty-eighth year.

Fig. 31 is a view of the first furnace erected at Catasauqua by Mr. Thomas. This furnace was about forty feet square at the base and forty feet high; it was twelve feet internal diameter at the "boshes" and was lined with nine-inch fire-brick brought from Risca, in Wales. The hearth was four feet square. At first the "hot-blast stoves" were on the ground and fired with coal; they were three in number, and each contained two "bed pipes" connected by ten semicircular "siphon pipes." Each "stove" had a fire-grate at one end, and at the other was a chimney provided



with a damper at its top. The gas escaped freely at the "tunnel-head," and was, of course, wasted. The first blowing machinery comprised a "breast" water-wheel, twenty-five feet long and twelve feet in diameter; this operated two blowing cylinders five feet in diameter and six feet stroke. At first the pressure of blast was only about a pound and a half, but the following year another water-wheel of the same size was added, after which the pressure of blast was increased to two pounds and a half per square inch. The head and fall of the water-supply was eight