Читать книгу The History of Mining - Michael Coulson - Страница 44

As well as copper there were early discoveries of iron ore, the first being in North Carolina in 1585 by Thomas Heriot, who was on an expedition dispatched to the New World by Sir Walter Raleigh. The iron ore was useful to the growing colonies as their blacksmiths needed it to make tools and nails for construction. A small shipment of ore was sent back to England from Virginia in 1608 as ballast and was smelted in Bristol. A few years later an attempt was made to establish ironworks in Virginia for the manufacture of tools on a significant scale but local Indians destroyed the works established near Jamestown.

During the 17th century iron ore was found in a number of locations in the colonies – Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Kentucky – and ironworks were established. One of the first was at Lynn, Massachusetts, built by John Winthrop Jr. who formed the Undertakers for the Iron-works Company in 1643. One environmental issue that had already raised concern in England with the growing iron industry was the rapid denuding of woodland to provide charcoal for the smelting process. The age of coal was about to begin, and so it was in the colonies as the cutting down of forests became equally unpopular.

The American colonies were settled with agriculture as their main economic activity, which perhaps explains why for many years the development of industrial enterprises, like ironworks, lagged behind Europe in technological terms, particularly behind the old country, as the Industrial Revolution loomed, and this continued beyond the achievement of independence.

In the early 18th century American iron making was based on blooms – wrought iron lumps – which could be beaten into implements on blacksmiths’ forges. Cast iron working followed but operating problems due to the lack of waterpower in the summer meant that continuous working had to await the arrival of steam power at the start of the 19th century. There was also the problem that the British government sought to control iron production and encourage the export of iron ore to England for smelting; with American independence that practice ended.

The first iron ore used in Massachusetts came from bog ore – ore that had accumulated in ground hollows which had often then become ponds or small lakes. In due course larger accumulations of haematite and magnetic ores were discovered. At the end of the War of Independence every US state had some form of ironworks, although in terms of production they were still small and weekly output from each works was little more than 25 tonnes, an insignificant level compared to output in Europe. A century later the US was producing as much steel as Great Britain, Germany and France put together as huge iron ore and coal deposits in the Midwest were discovered and developed.