Evening Star Newspaper, December 25, 1921, Page 34

b, | THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 25, 1921—PART 4 LISTENING IN ON ZADA—By Sewell Ford [IRON FURNACES OF MARYLAND PLAYED BIG PART IN EARLY HISTORY, SAYS RAMBLER HAT Collins girl comin’ here 3 again tod: demands Inez. “Naturally,” says L “IUs ck. 1 know it's you're needs curling In the b a Dbit extravagant, but asking people to part with two seven- ty-five each for you'vo at least kot to luok conviu 1mg as a flapper. Hence the weekly when orchestrs sesslon with Sudi “Iluh!" says Incz. “Plenty other hair dressers.” “Why, Ine as Miss Collins ever done to you?” “Her donw't do anything to 3 1 wouldn't let he 1 no like her, that's all” “Oh!” says L And after I'd thought it over for awhile I could dope out very little | that was worth much. There are cer- tain types of their own species, T knew, that some women dislike and distrust from instinct. Perhaps Sudie Collins was of this class. Not having even a second mortgage on any par- ticular man myself. 1 had nothing to worry about, and 1 couldn’t quite xes where Inez needed to get green in the eye. “But just how does Miss Collins man- age to start your day all wrong, I nez.” I asked. “She strikes me as rather a chirky, pleasant young person, and she certainly knows her job.” *Maybe.” admits Inez. “She has bold look, though. Me, 1 wouldn't trust he: * K # FELL, you kunow how a kuock Tik that, it don't it at the time, will start working up picions. Anyway, while she was busy on my revised near-henna hair that morning 1 couldn’t help watching her in the mirror. Yes, there might be some- thing In Inez's hunch, for if she was inclined that way Sudie could qualify for a vamp. One of these slim, long- ‘walsted girls with an easy. glidy sort of walk and a soothing voice. Besides, she had cheek dimples, a fresh, heal- thy complexion that didn’t need to be totiched up from a box. and danger- ous hair—that true copper-red shade ) even you son that no wash can quite duplicate. With all that w her quick, eager way of looking at vou and doing things if she was full of life and in love with life. Real pep. Yes, she could get 'em stretching their ne if that was her line. But was it? So I gave her an opening for cen- fidential chat. But Miss Collins didn’t respond by pouring out the story of her life. She smiled friendly enough but just went on making two curls grow where only one grew before. And at that I did get curious. Only T didn't make the mistake of starting right out to pump her. I began by telling her something about myself. “Do you know, Miss Collins,” say 1, “it's a wonder T never tried hair-| dressing, for before 1 side-slipped into acting I'd tackled almost every- thing else. I believe I should have gone around distributing permanent waves and so on if I'd known how to break in. I suppose you take le: sons?” She admits that you do. “You were in something else first, weren't you?" I suggests. says she. Oh!” says I. “In one of those ‘Deauty parlors? says she. “Hotel barber €hop.” “I see,” says I, although I didn’t. »You weren't satisfied with that, eh? Tve heard that the tipping was good.” “It is if you can stand for all the mush the men hand you,” says Miss Collins. “I couldn’t. So as soon as T'd saved enough I hunted up a wom- an who agreed to give me a full course for $25 and for the next month 1 spent most of my evenings with her.” “Then you had to find some clients, didn't you?’ I asked. “How did you manage that?” “That was the hardest part,” says she. “I had business cards printed and persuaded the room clerk to put them in the guests letter boxes. For & week or so nobody seemed to pay any attention to them. Then I had two or three calls and those ladies must have told some of their friends about me, for inside of six weeks I was making enough to live on.” “And now?” I suggested. “I'm on the go from 8 in the morn- ing until sometimes 9 and 10 o'clock at night,” says Miss Collins. “You see, I have to do so much skipping sbout. First I'll have an appointment at some hotel down on West 45th, and perhaps the next one will be up on East 96th. That's what makes it hard, especially in weather like this. And I lose so much time jumping around. Honest, when I get home at night I'm Just dead.” Which was where I came In with the pointed remark: ‘Some day, though,” says I, “you'll be getting married and then you'll quit it all.” * k kK 8c[)0 vou think s0?" says she, gaz- ing dreamy over the top of my head into the mirror. “It's being done every day,” says L *You must be around twenty-five, Miss Collins, and you're not going to get any younger, especially if you Xeep up this fourteen-hour schedule. A grind like that will fade the cheek roses and put wrinkles in the eve corners that massage can’s Jeep out. Besides, the right man is bound to be Xnocking around somewhere, waiting for a nod from you. My guess is, too, that you've got a whole string yew could pick from.” “That's nice of you to think so,” says she. “Oh, come!” says I. “You'ré not go- ng to try to tell me that all the men you've met so far have been duds, or blind in both eyes? I'll bet you could call up any one of a dozen ‘phone numbers and have a perfectly good man hot-footing it for the license bu- Feau within an hour. Eh?" ° She let loose a gurgly little laugh at that. “You would lose your bet,” says she, “for I've been married near- 1y two years.” Of course, after springing that one on me, she couldn’t do any less than give me the rest of the tale. It dated back to the big war, when she was Jiving with her folks at Dorchester, st outside of Boston. Seems there a naval flying station somewhere pear, and through a friend whose Prother was in the service she met this Ted Collins, who'd been jammed through three months of intensive and useless drills in navigation, given an ensizn's commission, outfitted with. some daszsling white uniforms, and sent up over Boston harbor in a double-control bomber with an in= wirnatox Jeha-had. niahed. dolng Jus A it, and nty bobbed halr | hundred hours' solo flying not more than three wecks before. I gathered that Ted and Sudie had hit it off right from the start. “Yes," says I, | uniforms, with jthem, were [ they? “I'd seen plenty and kept my head,” s Sudie, “until I met Ted Collins. “those first aviation 1 the gold braid on to resist, weren't rd sa And it wasn't the gold braid or the bi buttons, or the wings on his collar that 1 feil for. It was Just Ted hims | some 1f. He w fellow. such a cle | Why, even in gr Voveralls and with his face and hands | all smearved up after working ovel balky motor, he could look clean {clean was, all the way th ‘em weren't that way, you But my Ted Well, 1 couldn’t tell you. or about _ that | brave, happy look in his blue eyes. | For he was brave. He had to be to | keep that smile in his eyes and go up every day in a rickety old bus that n, Whole- he ome of { know. i | | i 1 PROVISED T0 WAIT U was due to crash with him almost any minate. Twice he was fished out of the water after a wing collapsed, but neither time was he much hurt. Any- way, it didn’t get his nerve. It wi {after the second smash that we got engaged. Of course, Ted wanted to be married right off, but I wouldn't have it. His mother needed all of his pay that he could spare, and my folks were just scrubbing along. I promised back. to wait until he came thought it might be six be cight. You know?” I nodded. * ays . “We were going to finish things in a hurry, i(hbrn at first. He got across. did he e UDIE said he was among the first Scotland, helping the English patrol the Irish sca. That was dull but easy and fairly safe. Hindenberg drive, when the Britis lost so many of their flying men, he was transferred to a land squadron, taught to handle a scout plane, and sent over the lines. That was where | he got smashed up. Not in any heroic above-the-clouds battle. No. She said he wouldn’t have minded if it had come that way. But to get it miles from the front, and simply because the driver of a supply truck had been on too lively a party the night be- fore—that was what Ted Cellins called rotten luck. IHe'd been sent out from the rest camp to scour the country for a Thanksgiving turkey, so it wasn't even official business. How- ever, when the bleary-eyed truck driver had swerved into an ammuni- tion camion the crash had been just as complete as if he’d taken a header into a mine hole. Tt finished Ted's flying days, very nearly finished him. It took months to patch him up, and one of the best surgeons in Paris, who | happened to take an interest in Ted's case. The rib and arm fractures were rather complicated, too; but they finally got those straightened out. Also the big doctor did wonders in restor- ing the right side of Ted's face. He almost gave him back his old smile. The right hip, though, was stubborn. It just wouldn't heal properly. So, months after the armistice, Ted Col- lins came limping off a transport at Hoboken and was farmed out to a badly managed reconstruction hospi- tal for treatment. So he was out of luck generally. He had come straggling home after everything was over. The war had been won. The parading and shout- ing had stopped. We were busy get- | ting back to normalcy, so busy that Ted Collins and thousands like him were forgotten by most of us. Sudie Keefe remembered, though. She sold two liberty bonds for what they would bring and came on to New York, where she could be near her Ted. For a week or so she tried to do what she could for him during visiting hours. But she found that she couldn’t help much. She could do nothing to better the wretchedly cooked meals or the sloppy nursing. Then she formed her plan. With no practical experience at all and very little idea of what she was letting herself in for, she went after a job as manicurist and got it. “In a hotel barber shop,” sald she, shrugging her fine shoulders. “You don’t quite know what that means. ‘Well, you're lucky. But I stood it somehow. And just as soon as I found out how much I could make I told Ted he had to marry me. He wouldn't, at first. Said I dldn't know what & wreck he was, Maybe he'd never be any good, anyhow. Well, I wouldn't listen to talk like that. TI'd got to take care of him, and the only way I could do it was as his wife I fairly dragged him to the ministen Then I found three little rooms, one &;flmfi&m ‘Wa-Set Op-house~ qruyou&hnsh'mgn!; like mal N il L HE CAME BACK. We' lot sent over, and that for a while he was stationed on the west coast of Then, after the big; keeping with what few things I could buy from an installment house. ‘s been uphill work, but we've been getting on. I'm bringing him around gradually. I found a youug surgeon who' was sure he could fix up | that hip. He's almost done it. Ted | walked three whole blocks all by him- self yesterday and he docs most of | the work around the flat. $ix months | ore and he may be able to look for a job—he's an electrical engineer, you kuow. Of course, he'll always be lume, and his right arm never will| be quite strong. We're happy, though, | | even if we do see little of cach other, |and when 1 open my shop— | onr says L “Youre going to| have an establishment of your own, | {are you?” | EE | §(ONLY a small one,” says she, “but | it's in a good location. Here's | the number on one of my cards and 1 hope you'll be able to come to me, for | I'm depending on keeping most of my w j customers. You see, I've had to run| frightfully in to debt getting the shop fitted up, and If 1 can't swing it- | Well, I've got to. that's all. on ac- I shall start in there Wish me luck, won't | count of Ted. next week. ou? Il do more than that. Sudie Col-! lins” says 1. “I shall round up all| the trade I can for you, for 1 think| | vou're a perfect brick. | { That got her chcked up so she | couldn’t say a word and when she left those bright eyes of hers were some- ! what misty. Inez noticed it as she ! passed her in the hallway and of course was curious. “What's the matter with that Col- lins girl?” she asks. “You been find- in® out things about her that makes her cry, Trilby May?” s and no,” says I nd listen, | Incz, vour dope about her was all wrong. Vamping isn't her specialty, any more than playing the saxophon is yours. She isn’t Miss Collins at all, xcept for business reasons, for she's married to a bunged-up war hero that i she’s supporting by working herself to a frazzle. So you've got to line up, Inez, as one of her regulars when she opens her new shop.” And after she’'d heard the \vhole| | tale Inez is almost as strong for Sudie | as I am. She has a good heart, Inez, when you can get at it. But she's bound to have her suspicions, even if she has to shift 'em to somebody else. That’s a lot to do for any man,” says she. “If he's worth it, all right; but some of them war heroes ain't much good, I hear.” “Well,” says I, “I have her word for it that this Ted of hers is a regular fellow. Let's hope she's a good judge.” ! “Suppose he wasn't all she thinks,” suggests Inez. “That would be tough, eh?” “Say, Inez,” I protests, “for the love { of soup quit the crape hanging. And you'd think, to hear me press- agenting for Miss Collins’ new shop those next few years, that I had a half | interest in the business. I went| around telling everybody I knew {about what a swell hair dresser she THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE it got mo you could buy ’'em at the five and ten stores. Imitatlons, you know. I had a palr of real wings, though. Got 'em off a reg-lar flyer, one I met in Parls while T was over doin’ my act on the Y circult, back of the 11 Is that a real pin of yours, Miss Colling?" Sudie admits that it is. “You got It off'm a fiyer?” asks Miss Leclair. Sudie nods. “Well, I hope you didn't lose track of himn, the way I did mine,” goes on Miss Leclalr. ¥, he was some boy, that young feller, even if he had been | badly busted up and was still sup- posed to be in the hospital. Met him | at a party some officer friends of mine was glving to cclebrate gettin’ the Huns on the run. It was a whale of a party, all right. Fizz water! Say, I never saw so much opened in one night. Not that 1 generally monkey much with that stuff. Never when I'm working. But I was all through i | l | i ! MONTHS, MAYBE ER then and ready to sail back on the next transport for good old New York. Besides, this was a special oc- casion. And the first thing I knew 1 cuttin’ loose. Everybody was, that night “Ye-e-es Sudie. sort of| draggy. “Now will that be all to- day?” “You might thin out the eyebrows a little,” says Miss Leclair. “And as I was sayin', T certainly did get going. So did this boy with the nice eves | that sat next to me. He forget all| wbout being a ‘blesss’ and everyihing | else. All he remembered was that he | had a thirst and that T was in reach of his good arm. Glancing through the door and into the mirror T could see Sudie biting her upper lip. I thought I could tell why. She seemed to be in a hurry to get through with Miss Leclair and shunt her out of the chair. Refore she went, though, Miss Leclair had one more thought. * ¥ ¢ THE wings he gave me,” she add- | ed, “had his squadron number on { the front. I remember now, just as| plain what it was. And say-—Why, | yours has the same number! And he was tellin’ me about a girl of his back home that he was goin’ to mar- ry. Yes. Say, didn't somebody say your first name was Sudie?” “—I shouldn’t wonder.” says Miss Collins, dropping her chin l'ke a bad- gered witness. “Why, then,” goes on Miss Leclair, it must have been the same feller. What do you know about that, eh? Ted! Wasn't that his name?" Sudie nods. “You don't say!” exclaims Miss Le- clair. “Well, he was some boy, all right. Wonder if he ever got back or what happened to him? Did you ever hear?” “Yes,” says Sudle. “I married him. h, you did!” gasps Miss Leclair. “Say, dearie, don’t you pay no atten- tion to that guff I was givin' you about the party. I—I might have been stretchin’ it some, and maybe he wasn't the one.” 3 But by that time Sudie Collins had X Y UEN you come to Muirkirk by train, trolley or auto, v or that humblest way of traveling, afoot, you will sce a group of structures of stone, brick and sheet iron. Some of these are built of 01d and hard-burnt brick and are in the form of giant hogs- ads bound with massive iron hoops. These are ore roasters, or ore ovens. You know that ores are sometimes roasted, or calcined, to expel sul- phur and some other minerals, the Was Produced—Whe cause of Competition. ETHODS Used il‘l the Furnaces Around Muirkirk, W]wre a Fine Grade Of Ircn | { | n Charcoal Was thcfi! Only Fuel—How English Government Sought to Discourage Iron-Making in the Colonies Be- heat volatilizing them. . The tall sheet-iron structure is the clevutur]"‘”“ forgsmeltinggthe fore and/itne rapid consumption of wood excited the alarm of politicians. As carly as the reign of Elizabeth thero had been loud complaints that whole forests had been cut down for the purpose of concerning melting iron out of rock | fe¢ding the furnaces, and the parlla- e ey a8 mine wers antil 1{ment had interfered to prohibit the explored and hung around the old [M#nufacturers from burning timber. Muirkirk furnace, got hstruction |The manufacture consequently lan- from a man who lnows as much |EUlshed. At the close of the reign of ubout furnaces and charcoal irons|‘harles TI a great part of the iron s anyhody i the United States and | Which was used in this country was then 2id some “reading.up” on iron- |imported from abroad, and the whole making. 1t is a very big subject |dUARULY cast here annually scems not shaft, through which the ore, char- coal and lime are carried to the top of the “stack.” The heavy, tower- like structure of brick is the “stack.” Perhaps, my reader, your notions | the moiten was, even to & casual acquaintance I |her chin up onc met in Auntie Bates' dressing room at | those clear steady eyes of hocs fleog the theater. on the other woman. “Oh, yes,” says b Perhaps you remember my men-|she. “It was Ted. He told ;ne all tioning Mrs. Bates, who plays the|about ft—before we were married.” mother role in “The Flapper.” Glddy ; old girl who used to be in burlesque jand never got over it. This friend of hers, a Miss Zada Leclair, is in vaude- ville on the big time circuit, and looks i}. Rather a brilliant brunette, but with a selfish little mouth and hard black eyes. What I noticed most, though, was her wonderful glossy hair and the atrocious do she had on it. So I skimped my make-up time long enough to tell her about Sudie Collins and give her the address. She promised to look her up. I might not have been so enthusias- tic if I'd known she was going to horn in on my appointment hour the very next day and keep me warming a chair in the new shop for a full half| hour. But there I found her, having a full facial and all the trimmings, so I settled myself in the little waiting room and made the best of it. * Kk ok ok SE'J proved to be a chatty person, Miss Leclair. I listened in while she told Sudie all about what a good act she had with Morrie Kahn, whose stage name was Victor Vaugh. But finally, when she’d nearly exhausted that subject, she switched to personal remarks about Sudie. “That's natural henna, ain't it she asks. “Your halr, I mean. I thought so0. I can generally tell. And that's a stunning waist you got on, Miss Collins. So simple and all I see you're still wearin' one of them avia- tor pins, Don't see 8o many of ‘em now, do you? Gee, wa'n't the givis “Good Gawd!” says Zada Leclair. “What a poor nut! But don't you worry about it. Men ain't - worth worryin’ about, anyway.” “My Ted is,” says Sudie. “That's why he told. But now that I've seen you, I'm wondering why he bothered. That's all, Miss Leclair. Come again, won’t you? And as Zada passed me on her way out she whispered husky: “Say, did you get that? Ain't she got proper feelin’s, or—or was she slippin’ me something?” “I think one of your propositions,” says I, “is & good gues: . And after Sudie had sobbed a little on my shoulder she proceeded to get busy with the curling tongs. It was that same afternoon, too, that Inez urges me to go with her to see a new movie feature that's adver- tised as an emotional thriller, “No, thanks, Inez,” says I. “T don't need to. I've just been to the hair dresser.” (Copyright, 1921, by Sewell Ford.) Knew Himseli. o An Indianapolis woman was visit- ing her three-year-old grandson, and one day saw him standing before the mirror looking at himself and say- ng: “Yes, that's me.” *“Thomas,” sald grandmother, “you should say, “That 1s 1.” - Thomas looked pusszled and then replied; Well, ft.might e L, but it looks and to understand it is a man’s job. 1 am going to administer a bit of education to you by explaining the “stack” and the eusiest way to give you a little picture of it is to read this from the Encyclopedia Britan- nica: “The {ron blast furnace, & crude but very cfficient piece of ap- paratus, is an enormous shaft usu- ally wbout eizhty feet high and twenty feet wide at its widest part. It is at all times full from top to bottom of a solid column of pieces of fuel, ore and limestone, which are charged through a hopper at the top, and descend slowly as the lower end of the column is eaten off through the burning away of its ‘coke’ by means of very hot air or ‘blast’ blown through holes, or ‘tuyeres,’ near the bottom, or ‘hearth,’ and through tho melting away, by the heat thus generated, both of the iron itself, which has been deoxid- ized in its descent, und of the other minerais of the ore, called the ‘gangue,” which united with the lime of the limestone and the ash of the fuel, form a complex moiten silicate called the ‘cinder’ or ‘s * % kR follows an account of the ac- of gases, which we will omit TH tioy because one must be “up” in chemis- t The solld column gradually sinks to- ward the hearth till at the ‘fusion level’ the solid matter has become s0 hot that the now deoxidized iron melts, as does the ‘slag’ as fast as it is formed by the union of its th constituents—the gangue, the lime from the decomposition of the lime- stone and the ash of the fuel. Hence from this level down is the coke, in lumps which are burning rapidly and hence shrinking, while between them iron and molten slag trickle to collect in the hearth in two layers, as dlstinct as water and oil, the iron below, the slag above. As i they collect the molten iron is drawn off at intervals through a hole tempo- rarily stopped with clay, at the very bottom, and the slag through another hole a little higher up called the ‘cinder notch. That deseribes a furnace where coke is the fuel instead of charcoal, but for our rough and ready purpose it ought to give a conception of the old furnace which stands about four- teen miles from Washington, and of the hundred or so other old furnaces which have “made” iron in this vicin- ity since the United States was a set of coionies. Near the stack is a great cistern built of stone, and there is a maze of | water pipes connected with a well and pump. Without knowins it as a fact, the Rambler assumes that this water plant was used for cooling the loutside of the stack to aid in the of the for the preser on walls, combined fluxing and abrading action | to | of the descending charge tends wear the lining of the furnace where it is hottest, which, of course, is near its lower end, lessening its efficienc RAILROAD BRIDGE OVER WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE BOULEVARD, AT MUIRKIRK, MD. and increasing its consumption of fuel. At the south end of the furnace are old ore bins. Some distance east are ruins of brick structures built as ore ovens, and in a field south of the fur- nace you see six brick structures, cir- cular in form, about thirty feet in diameter, and each having a convex or domelike roof. These are charcoal kilns. Thé wood was cut mnearby, hauled to these kilns and “carbon- ized” or reduced to charcoal, that ma- terial bearing the same relation to wood as coke does to coal. In the early days of iron making in the American colonies charcoal was the only fuel used. and it was 6o in early days. of iron making in all other countries. Macauley, in his “History of Eng- 1and,” treating of the industrial state of England in the seventeenth cen- tury, says: “Far more important has been the improvement of our fron works. Such works had long existed in our island, but had not prospered, and had been regarded with no favorable eys by the government and by the publia It ‘was mot then the practice to-employ ¢ to understand it, and then this:| to have exceeded 10,000 tons. At pres- ught to be in a s than a million One the trade is th depressed state if 1 of tons are produced in a year. mineral perhaps more important than iron itself remains to be mentioned. Coul, though very little used in any species of manufacture, was already {the ordinary fuel in some districts which were fortunate enough to pos- sess large beds, and in the capital. which could easily be supplied by water carriage.” * % ¥ ¥ THH English government succes- sively sought to discourage iron making in the American colonies be- cause it competed with English iron manufacture, and to encourage Ameri- can ircn making because it tended to conserve English forests. John Heury Alexander, topographical engineer of Maryland, in a report to Gov. William Grayson In 1840, enumerated the iron works then in operation in Maryland, and he listed many of these ruins. He d that iron furnaces were in oper- ation in Maryland and Virginia at least as early as 1718, for in that vear led to England, and in 1719 an act w | provosed in the house of lords to pre- {vent the erection of rolling mills or | “stitting mi in America. The act was not passed, but in 1750 an act having the same aim was passed by the English parliament. The iron in- | dustry in the colonies was so flourish- ing that in 17 |in the Birtish parliament that all the | pig iron needed by the British iron | works should be brought from Amer- ica, “and thus conserve the woodlands of the British Islands.” The first official record of the ex- tent of the iron industry in Maryland s to be found among the proceedings | of the council under date of August 23, 1756, where there is a report of the governor and council to the Brit- ish commissioners of trade and plan- tations that eight furnaces and nine forges were in eperation, and that the furnaces were turning out about 2,500 tons of pig iron a year and that the forges were capable of turning out 600 tons of bar iron. That there were eight furnaces in operation in Mary- land in 1756 does not give a proper idea of the whole number operated at different times. The sites and ruins of many furnaces can be found in the territory close to Washington. They are numerous in Prince Georges and Ann Arundel cpunties, in Frederick county and along the upper Potomac between Washington and Antietam and below Washington in Virginia. The ruin which the Rambler found near the head of Neabsco creek must have been a celebrated furnace in its day, and the Gov. Spotswood furnace in the Rappahannock (or is it on the Rapidan?) above Fredericksburg at Germanna was one of the.early and long famous furnaces of the colonies. The historians of fron making in America havs not gone to-the bottom of the subject. three tons of iron bars were export- | < {1n 1837 at Lonaconing, which went on 7 there was a proposal | HE Rambler is sure that the facts | indicate the existence of @ fur- | nace within a few miles of the Muir- | kirk furnace on the “Iron Mine” tract | as early as 1675, vet in all the books it is set forth that the first Maryland | furnace was the Principio furnace, | which was built in 1724. Dr. Richard Moldenke, who has written a Look, | entitled “Charcoal Iron.” at the in- stance of the Salisbury Tron Corpora- ! tion, “with the hope that this lit book will intcrest foundrymen cno to make them think more of quality while turning out cver increasing tonnage and thus maintain the igh' standing the American foundry prod- uct has always had the world over,” | says: The first blast furnace of Mary-| land was built in 1724 by the Principio | Company, which was prominent in iron making for fifty years. The hearth of the original furnace was| still standing in 1840. The Washing- | tons became interested in iron mak- | ing about 1737, the Accokeek being in que: the unit The Principio Company built several fur- | naces. but its propert confiscat- | ed by the state of Maryland in 1780 as enemy property, excepting the in- terest of Mr. Washington (a hrother of George). One of the old furnaces, the Catoctin, was visited by the| writer recently and the remains of | three furnaces are still to be seen there. They were twelve miles north | of Frederick, the original furnace| dating from 1774 and the present ones from 1831. “Many furnaces were located in this | state, the only one remaining for| charcoal being that at Muirkirk. The | western part of Maryland had a fur-| nace at Bear creek in 1829. Another | | coke in 1839, was suppo: first successful attempt with this fuel in Am °d to be the t running A, Other coke furnaces were built later. On authoriiy of Mr. Merwin McKaigz, the | Cumberland region had probably | | twenty-five cold blast charcoal fur- naces in operation between 1825 and | 1835, Pig iron was made during the | summer and in winter loaded on rafis, nd floated down the Potomac river. | Thence it was transshipped on schooners for varlous eastern ports. | The District of Columbia had a fur- nace in 1849 which went out of blast in 1855. The government had built | a forge for anchors in 1812 at the| ) Washington navy yard, and at that time there was In existence a “can- non foundry” above Georgetown on the Potomac. A cannon cast there, to throw @ ball 100 pounds in weight, was called the ‘Columbiad.’ * ok ok k Dl".. MOLDENKE describes the ore roasting process-at Muirkirk, ana for more than fifty years—let us say, seventy years—this preliminary treat- ment of ore was carried on close to the capital. Hundreds of thousands of travelers east and west on the Baltimore and Ohio have seen the glare and felt the heat from these:| big roasting kilns, for they are with- in a few fect of the tracks. Smelting iron 1s an art that seems older than any of man’s written records, and the blast furnace is a very old institution, for the ruins of prehistoric furnaces ! Muirk to those used for burning lime, thus getting the ore ready for the furnace. After lighting up at the bottom and burning away the coal mised with the ore the Jatter was removed and the kiln recharged. Dr. Moldekne say he very process ean be observed today at Muir! Md., where the siderites, or spathic ores of that region are mixed with coke breeze and caleined. The roasted ore then #oee to the blust furnace and makes an excellent charcoal iron.” The statement that the Principio furnaces were confiscated by Ma land in 1780 is made by Dr. Moldekne, a learncd writer on iron making in the United States, but no mention of this is made in the publication of the Maryland geological survey, which treats briefly of three historic Mary- land furnaces, or groups of furna —those at Principio, the Catoctin fur na Freder county and the Mu : Principio fur naces did their share toward win- ning the independence of the United States and the Maryland survey says: “During the revolutionary war the in kirk furna 1 furn Company non balls to The Trincipio « war of 18 and hardw d forges of the Principic supplied bur iron and car Army he the Continental during mpany produced e b , and guns as large i 32-pounders were made for th \ ernment. Many furnaccs wer in other scctions of the state during the ecighteenth znd early portion of the nineteenth centurics, but all of them have been aubandoncd (1906). Among the most important of these furnaces is the Catoctin fur- nace in Frederick county, which w built in 1774, and furnished guns and projectiles to the Continental Ar; during the revolutionary war. The only furnace mnow manufacturing Maryland iron to any extent is the k furnace in Prince Georges county.” nearl: Bayberry Candles. STMAS would not lik seem ~HR! Christmas without candles, @ni the bayberry candie is the candle o The Luvberry candle is a New Englangl institution, but it has been carried to all parts of the coun- New England people and is bu d by them and t d ants in every city under the can flag, and no doubt it is 1 in other as. vbe an be bought in shops in Ric Charleston, New Orleans and West. customs that of the People south have always usad candles at but th custony is not pearly so generally foilowed us it was u generation o two ago. There is a superstition about the bayberry candle. It burned not alone for its pungent fragrance, but iso for the good luck that it brings for two or three t “u bavberry can- for it has boen sa st hundred yes dle bu i to the socket brings luck to the house und wealth to the pocket.” Many New gland fami- iies in Washington city and cities the south persist in the rther to bayberry candle habit and many oth- ers not of New England origin have adopted the Lerry ndle and “make a wish as it burns.” The northeastern Indians soon learned the value of the bayberry for making candles, or “torches’ after the coming of the whites. It has been d that they made wax from this berry and used it as an il- luminant be& the coming of the whites, but the evidence is shadowy. 1ts light was known in New Eng- land at an early time. At the Abe- naki Indian village, on the Kennebec river, the learned Jesuit priest, Pere Raie (or Rasles), lighted his chapel with great numbers of these fragrant candles. All the early settlers of upper New England had molds for candles before whale oil became com- mon and they used to “run” the wax of bayberries into these candle molds They very often called the bayberry the ndelberry.” A few years ago. when people were Infatuated with the revival of old things, -the ancieni candle molds were brought out and wax extracted from bayberri; The making of bayberry candl now a household industry, but is car- ried on by commercial concerns. The plant from which the bayberr: wax is obtained is the shrub Myrcia cerifera (Myrtle wild wax), end it is common along the sandy coast line of the castern and central states and on the sand dunes back of the beach. It insists on a salt-water neighborhoo’l. The wax of the bayberry has been known in some parts of the country as “Merica tallow,” “myrtle tallow” and “myrtle wax.” There are many varieties of myrtle scattered about the world, and they all yield wax. The bayberry shrub is not very close- - ly related ot the Myrcla acris or ‘West India bay bush or dbay tree from the leaves of which bay rum & ob- tained by distillation. You see, berry” shows that it is a bay, and have been found in Europe, and blast furnaces used for the continuous or intermittent commercial production of molten metal were in operation in the Rhine provinces certainly as early as 1300. An English writer described in 1680 the roasting of ore by mixing it 'with coal and filling up kilns similar Fl its botanic name. Myrcia, shows that it is a myrtle. It is a famous plant family. In classic times successful warriors and athletes, .poets and singers were often crowned with bay, and it is sometimes written that thes were crowned with myrtle wreaths. Botanists believe that these triumpha wreaths and chaplets were woven from the leaves of a tree which they now call “Laurus nobilia,” or the laurel of the nobla. the common name =bay-