s of iron fall to the
bottom of the pond. In colonial days much of the iron worked in
America was taken from these deposits. One kind of iron is of special
interest because it comes directly from the sky, and falls in the
shape of stones called "meteorites," some of which weigh many tons. In
some of the old fables about wonderful heroes, the stories sometimes
declare that the swords with which they accomplished their deeds of
prowess fell straight from the heavens, which probably means that they
were made of meteoric iron. Fortunately for the people and their
homes, meteorites are not common, but every large museum has
specimens of them.

It is not especially difficult to make iron if you have the ore, a
charcoal fire in a little oven of stones, and a pair of bellows. Put
on layers of charcoal alternating with layers of ore, blow the
bellows, and by and by you will have a lump of iron. It is not really
melted, but it can be pounded and worked. This is called the "Catalan
method," because the people of Catalonia in Spain made iron in this
way. It is still used by the natives of the interior of Africa. But if
all the iron was made by this method, it would be far more costly than
gold. The man who makes iron in these days must have an immense "blast
furnace," perhaps one hundred feet high, a real "pillar of fire." Into
this furnace are dropped masses of ore, and with it coke to make it
hotter and limestone to carry off the silica slag, or worthless part.
To increase the heat, blasts of hot air are blown into the bottom of
the furnace. This air is heated by passing it through great steel
cylinders as high as the furnace. The fuel used is nothing more than
the gases which come out at the top of the furnace.

The slag is so much lighter than iron that when the ore is melted the
slag floats on top just as oil floats on water, and can be drained out
of the furnace through a higher opening than that through which the
iron flows. The slag tap is open most of the time, but the iron tap is
opened only once in about six hours. It is a magnificent sight when a
furnace is "tapped" and the stream of iron drawn off. Imagine a great
shed, dark and gloomy, with many workmen hurrying about to make ready
for what is to come. The floor is of sand and slopes down from the
furnace. Through the center of this floor runs a long ditch straight
from the furnace to the end of the shed. Opening from it on both sides
are many smaller ditches; and c