Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 17 · column 4 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
essary for the separation process. Iron ore and limestone melt when temperatures reach 2,000 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the iron melts, the limestone serves as a flux causing the molten metal to separate from the dirt and flow downward. During the blast process, charcoal and iron were fed continuously to the furnace. At temperatures and conditions like these, a furnace could operate no longer them eight or nine months at a time before the interior firebrick had to be renewed.
Only a few people were required to run the furnace. The remainder of the operation was much more intense. Many people worked in the woods felling trees, burning the charcoal, mining the ore and limestone, and caring for the mules and oxen that pulled the wagons to move the raw materials. Because of the many and varied workers required, an “iron plantations’, a sort of self-sufficient company town usually developed around the furnace.
The Virginia charcoal iron
93.8%