t the present in puddled iron
manufactures. In 1831, a few hundredweights was the limit of weight of
a plate, while in 1881, there may readily be obtained, for
boiler-making purposes, plates of at least four times the weight of
those that were made in 1831. I may, perhaps, be allowed to say that
there is an extremely interesting blue-book of the year 1818,
containing the report of a parliamentary committee which sat on boiler
explosions, and I recommend any mechanical engineer who is interested
in the history of the subject to read that book; he will find it there
stated that in the North of England there was a species of engines
called locomotives, the boilers of which were made of wrought iron,
beaten, not rolled, because the rolled plate was not considered fit;
it was added that if made of beaten iron the boiler would last at
least a year.

In 1831, thirteen years later, the dimensions of rolled plates were no
doubt raised; but few then would have supposed it possible there
should be rolled such plates as are now produced for boiler purposes,
and still fewer would have believed that in the year 1881 we should
make, for warlike purposes, rolled plates 22 inches in thickness and
30 tons in weight. I have said there is very little alteration in the
process of making wrought iron by puddling, and I do not think there
is likely to be much further, if any, improvement in this process,
because I believe that, with certain exceptions, the manufacture of
iron by puddling is a doomed industry. I ventured to say, in a lecture
I delivered at the Royal Institution three years ago on "The Future of
Steel," that I believed puddled iron, except for the mere hand wrought
forge purposes of the country blacksmith, and for such like purposes,
would soon become a thing of the past. Mr. Harrison, the engineer of
the North-Eastern Railway, told me that about eighteen months ago the
North-Eastern Railway applied for tenders for rails in any quantities
between 2,000 and 10,000 tons, and they issued alternative
specifications for iron and for steel. They received about ten
tenders. Some did not care to tender for iron at all; but when they
did tender alternatively, the price quoted for the iron was greater
than for the steel. I have no doubt whatever that, in a short time, it
will be practically impossible to procure iron made by the puddling
process, of dimensions fit for many of the purposes for which a few
years ago it alone was used.