Iron
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Iron. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
I'urn, a hard, heavy, well known metal. Pure iron is silvery-white in color, but it is seldom seen. Wrought iron is the purest commercial form; yet piano strings, the purest wrought iron in the market, contain three pounds to the thousand of carbon and other elements. When in the presence of a magnet, or when placed within a coil through which an electric current is passing, soft iron becomes magnetic. Iron remains unchanged in dry air, but rusts--unites with oxygen--in moist air. Iron is the most useful of all metals, and of all metals it is the most widely distributed in nature. It forms a twentieth part of the world's crust. It is essential to life of all sorts. It is found in the green chlorophyll of plants and in the blood of animals. It occurs in meteorites. The color spectrum shows that iron is present in the sun. There is an iron mountain near Durango, Mexico. It is a projecting backbone or dike of solid iron ore,--a huge mass one mile long, a third of a mile wide, and 450 to 650 feet high. Similar hills in Missouri are known as Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob. Although the world is rich in deposits of iron the supply is by no means inexhaustible. In response to an inquiry instituted in 1905 by the Swedish government as to the world's supply of iron, experts submitted the following report. The figures represent tons of iron ore. Workable Annual Country deposits output United States 1,100,000,000 35,000,000 Great Britain 1,000,000,000 14,000,000 Germany 2,200,000,000 21,000,000 Spain 500,000,000 8,000,000 Russia and Finland 1,500,000,000 4,000,000 France 1,500,000,000 6,000,000 Sweden 1,000,000,000 4,000,000 Austria-Hungary 1,200,000,000 3,000,000 Other countries 5,000,000 Total 10,000,000,000 100,000,000 In this estimate great possibilities have no doubt been overlooked. Enormous deposits in the Rocky Mountains , in Mexico, in the Andes, in Africa, and doubtless in the Himalayas, are not taken into account, but the fact that the known supply will last only 100 years at the present rate of consumption is enough to make the reader thoughtful. The American colonists brought articles or iron with them and for a time the smiths imported bar iron. Iron furnaces were set up at an early day, however. Mordecai Lincoln, an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln, established a small furnace at Scituate, Massachusetts. The father of George Washington had a furnace in Virginia. The iron ores of New Jersey have played an important part in the development of the country, but have been neglected of late for ores more easily mined. The region about Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, furnished a large part of the iron consumed in building early American railroads, but iron ore is so abundant and cheap that only the most accessible mines are worked. Of late the material for heavy rails, locomotives, iron bridges, and sky-scrapers has been obtained chiefly from the Alabama and Lake Superior regions. In the production of iron ore the states of the Union rank as follows: Minnesota, Alabama, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York , and the Virginias. The sudden advance of Minnesota in iron production is due in part to the remarkable cheapness with which iron in the form of gravel may be obtained in a number of mines northwest of Lake Superior. Much of this gravel lies in hills or open pits accessible by a train of ore cars into which the ore is loaded by steam shovels. Ten shovelfuls load fifty tons into a hopper-bottomed steel car in three minutes. Trains of enormous length descend an easy grade, fifty or 100 miles to Lake Superior, where they run out on elevated ore docks, from the bins of which lake-going boats are loaded for Cleveland and other lake points. The largest ore ship now carries as high as 12,000 tons at a cargo. Ordinarily, iron so far from coal lies undisturbed; but in this case the low cost of mining and transportation proves more than an offset. Next to the United States comes Great Britain as a producer of iron. An abundance of coal is a factor. The ores of Norway and Sweden are celebrated. Germany ranks third in quantity. Spain has a high record for quality and quantity. Italy and Portugal lack coal with which to develop their large deposits. Newfoundland ships iron ore to Glasgow. Africa, Algeria, and Cuba export iron. Australia and South America have the ore, but as yet depend largely on outside countries for their supply of iron. Iron ores, however obtained, are first roasted to drive out water and sulphur, and the ore is then reduced in blast furnaces. These are huge fireproof chimneys, twenty-five to ninety feet high. They are filled by dumping in at the top, first a layer of coke, then a layer of iron ore, mixed perhaps with limestone, then coke and iron again, layer after layer, until the furnace is ready to fire. An intense heat melts the iron which sinks in a pool at the bottom of the furnace. When ready, a plug is knocked out and a flood of molten iron pours out into a system of furrows, made ready in a level yard of sand, perhaps an acre in extent. Men wearing wooden shoes work like demons in the heat, seeing first that the iron runs unobstructed and fills the gridiron ditches. As soon as the iron has solidified, and before it hardens, the workmen swing huge sledges and break the still white-hot streams of metal off into pieces not unlike cordwood in length. A supply ditch is called a sow. Many short ditches run out at right angles from the sows and are called pigs, terms suggested doubtless by the appearance of a brood sow suckling a lot of young pigs. The pieces into which the sows and pigs are broken are the pig iron of commerce. Steel, wrought iron, cast iron, malleable iron--iron in whatever form it may enter the endless list of articles made from this metal--are made from pig iron. In large blast furnaces the process is continuous. The fires never cease to roar. As fast as the mass sinks, ore, limestone, and coke are poured in at the top. The largest have an inside capacity of twenty-five feet. Prehistoric man managed to cobble up a furnace with stones and clay. A modern blast furnace, with blowers to inject air, steam hoists, inclined railroad tracks, and other accessories, is worth half a million dollars, or even twice that sum. A large furnace has a capacity of 600 tons of pig iron a day. Large and small, there are over 400 blast furnaces in the United States. In number of furnaces and the production of pig iron, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Alabama rank in the order named. The United States Steel Trust has recently set up four large blast furnaces at Gary, Indiana, with a capacity of 600,000 tons of pig iron yearly. The ore is obtained in Minnesota. Pig iron, or cast iron, is too brittle and contains too many other elements to be welded. Wrought iron is obtained from pig iron by smelting in a puddling furnace in which the heat and flame of burning coal remove the foreign ingredients until only six pounds of carbon to the thousand, and slight traces of sulphur, phosphorus, silicon, and manganese are left. Wrought iron may be welded by being heated until it is soft and hammered until the surfaces are brought into actual contact. A sprinkling of borax in the joint helps to clear the surfaces of cinders and to produce perfect adhesion. Wrought iron fuses at 2000 Deg.C. The chief iron ores are known as hematite and magnetite. Hematite is a compound of iron and oxygen in the proportion of two atoms of iron to three of oxygen. It is of two kinds, red and brown. Red hematite makes a red mark. It gives clay a red color. Bog iron is a form of brown hematite. It makes a brown mark. Magnetite is a harder, blacker, more crystalline ore. It contains more iron. The proportion of atoms is three of iron to four of oxygen. The most noted magnetite ore is the famous Swedish iron. Magnetite makes the finest cutlery. The ores of Alabama and the Superior region are chiefly hematites. Iron pyrites is a compound of iron and sulphur. The production of iron ore in the United States in long tons was in 1907: Alabama 4,039,453 Texas 118,667 Colorado 11,714 Connecticut and Massachusetts 37,166 Georgia 444,114 Kentucky, Maryland and W. Virginia, 62,808 Michigan 11,830,342 Minnesota 28,969,658 Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming 819,544 New York and New Jersey 1,924,780 North Carolina and Ohio 74,028 Pennsylvania 837,287 Tennessee and Missouri 925,458 Virginia 786,856 Wisconsin 838,744 Total 51,720,619 The world's production of pig iron in metric tons in 1908 was: United States 15,800,000 Germany 11,800,000 Great Britain 9,000,000 France 3,450,000 Russia 2,850,000 Belgium 1,350,000 Austria-Hungary 1,500,000 Sweden 500,000 Canada 600,000 Spain 400,000 Italy 135,000 Japan 38,000 Other Countries 100,000 Total . . . . .47,523,000 In medicine iron is a general tonic. It is acted upon by the gastric juice of the stomach. It gives the blood a healthy red color. See Steel ; Tempering; Razor ; Nail
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
Its occult virtues are thus described by Pliny, according to Holland :-" As touching the use of Yron and steele in Physicke, it serveth otherwise than for to launce, cut, and dismember withal; for take the knife or dagger, an make an ymaginerie circle two or three times round with the point thereof upon a young child or an elder bodie, and then goe round withall about the partie as often, it is a singular preservative against all poysons, sorceries, or enchantments. Also to take any yron naile out of the coffin or sepulchre wherein man or woman lieth buried, and to sticke the same fast to the lintle or side post of a dore, leading either to the house or bed-chamber where any dooth lie who is haunted with Spirits in the night, he or she shall be delivered and secured from such phanasticall illusions. Moreover, it is said, that if one be lightly pricked with the point of sword or dagger, which hath been the death of a man, it is an excellent remedy against the pains of sides or breast, which come with sudden prickes or stitches." In certain parts of Scotland and the North of Ireland , there is a belief in the potency of iron for warding off the attacks of fairies. An iron poker, laid across a cradle, will, it is believed, keep the fairies away until the child is baptised. The Rev. John G. Campbell in his Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands relates how when a child, he and another boy were believed to be protected from a fairy which had been seen at a certain spot by the possession, the one of a knife, and the other of a nail. This was at Appin in Argyllshire. 66 " Irving's Church, Speaking with Tongues in : In 1831 an outbreak of speaking with tongues occurred in the congregation of Edward Irving, in London. For several years Irving had waited for such a visitation, and had instituted special early-morning services for the purpose of hastening it. At length, in July, 1831, the "visitation " came, first one and then another of the congregation speaking with tongues and with prophetic uutterance. Irving himself was not at first entirely disposed to accept the utterances as of divine origin. But the undoubted good faith and irreproachable doctrine of his flock reassured him. Robert Baxter, who was absent at the commencement of the outbreak, but who was himself influenced to prophesy at a later date, has left an account of his experiences. The phenomena did not greatly differ from that of similar outbreaks. The inspired speakers were often attended by physical symptoms, such as convulsions, and they spoke in loud, somewhat unnatural tones. Baxter declares that he spoke sentences in Latin, French, and unknown languages. At length, however, evil spirits began to appear in the company, some of the congregation admitting that they had been possessed by false spirits. The outbreak seen afterwards died out.
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
Of all metals iron is the most important. The pure metal is found only in such rare instances as in the case of meteorites which have fallen from space. In South America and elsewhere isolated masses of soft malleable iron have been found loose upon the surface of the earth, and these too would seem to owe their origin to the same meteoric source. In these specimens of native metallic iron nickel is usually found. The presence of iron in an oxidized condition is universal: rocks and soils are colored by it, plants contain it, as also does the blood of the human body. Pure iron is very soft and tough, has a specific gravity of 7.8, is white, and has a perfect lustre. It may be observed that there always exists a very distinct fibrous texture in good bar-iron after it has been attacked with acid; the perfection of this fibre is what gives it strength. See MALLEABLE IRON; CAST IRON; STRENGTH OF MATERIALS.