Nothing has been too ponderous and naught too
trivial for the exercise of the inventive faculties of our skilled
workmen. All the world knows that hundreds of patents have been taken
out for improvements, and discoveries in connection with steam
machinery, but few would credit that quite an equal number relate to
such trifling articles as buckles and buttons, pins and pens, hooks and
eyes, &c.; and fortunes have been made even more readily by the
manufacture of the small items than the larger ones. The history of
Birmingham inventors has yet to be written; a few notes of some of their
doings will be found under "_Patents_" and "_Trades_."
~Iron.~--In 1354 it was forbidden to export iron from England. In 1567
it was brought here from Sweden and Russia. A patent for smelting iron
with pit coal was granted in 1620 to Dud Dudley, who also patented the
tinning of iron in 1661. The total make of iron in England in 1740 was
but 17,000 tons, from 59 furnaces, only two of which were in
Staffordshire, turning out about 1,000 tons per year. In 1788 there were
nine blast furnaces in the same county; in 1796, fourteen; in 1806,
forty-two; in 1827, ninety-five, with an output of 216,000 tons, the
kingdom's make being 690,000 tons from 284 furnaces.
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