them, but
also shows that very similar apparatus continued to be used in this
neighbourhood up to the close of the last century. It proceeds thus:--

"_Sows of Iron_ are the long pieces of cast iron as they run into the
sand immediately from the furnace; thus called from the appearance of
this and the shorter pieces which are runned into smaller gutters made in
the same sand, from the resemblance they have to a sow lying on her side
with her pigs at her dugs. These are for working up in the forges; but
it is usual to cast other sows of iron of very great size to lay in the
walls of the furnaces as beams to support the great strain of the work.

"_Dam Plate_ is a large flat plate of cast iron placed on its edge
against the front of the furnace, with a stone cut sloping and placed on
the inside. This plate has a notch on the top for the cinder or scruff
to run off, and a place at the side to discharge the metal at casting.

"_The Shaft_ of a wheel is a large round beam having the wheel fixed near
the one end of it, and turning upon gudgeons or centres fixed in the two
ends.

"_The Furnace House_ I take to be what we call the casting house, where
the metal runs out of the furnace into the sand.

"_The Bridge_ is the place where the raw materials are laid down ready to
be thrown into the furnace. I conceive that it had its name (which is
still continued) from this circumstance--that in the infancy of these
works it was built as a bridge, hollow underneath. It was not at first
known what strength was required to support the blast of a furnace
bellows; and the consequence was that they were often out of repair, and
frequently obliged to be built almost entirely new.

"_Bellows Boards_--not very different from the present dimensions.

"_Water Troughs_--scooped out of the solid timber. This shows the great
simplicity of these times, not 150 years ago.

"_The Hutch_, or as it is now corruptly called the Witch, a wide covered
drain below the furnace-wheel to carry off the water from it, usually
arched, but here only covered with timbers to support the rubbish and
earth thrown upon it.

"_Cambs_ are iron cogs fixed in the shaft to work the bellows as the
wheel turns round.

"_Cinder Shovels_, iron shovels for taking up the cinders into the boxes,
both to measure them and to fill the furnace.

"_Moulding Ship_, an iron tool fixed on a wooden handle, so formed as to
make the gutters in the sand for casting the pig