As It Began To Grow
Dark, We Found Ourselves Strolling In Front Of A Row Of Iron Mills, With
The Canal On One Side And The Lehigh On The Other.
One of these was a
rolling mill, into which we could look from the bank where we stood, and
observe the whole process of the manufacture, which is very striking.
The whole interior of the building is lighted at night only by the mouths
of several furnaces, which are kindled to a white heat. Out of one of
these a thick bar of iron, about six feet in length and heated to a
perfect whiteness, is drawn, and one end of it presented to the cylinders
of the mill, which seize it and draw it through between them, rolled out
to three or four times its original size. A sooty workman grasps the
opposite end of the bar with pincers as soon as it is fairly through, and
returns it again to the cylinders, which deliver it again on the opposite
side. In this way it passes backward and forward till it is rolled into an
enormous length, and shoots across the black floor with a twining motion
like a serpent of fire. At last, when pressed to the proper thinness and
length, it is coiled up into a circle by the help of a machine contrived
for the purpose, which rolls it up as a shopkeeper rolls up a ribbon.
We found a man near where we stood, begrimed by the soot of the furnaces,
handling the clumsy masses of iron which bear the name of bloom.
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