AFTER the completion of my duties as a Juror at the French International Exhibition of 1878, I was honoured by a request from the Board of Management of the British Iron Trade Association, to prepare a report on the present condition of the Manufacture of Iron and Steel, as illustrated by the objects displayed in the different buildings in the Champs de Mars, at Paris.
I had, however, previously proposed to myself a more extensive enquiry than that which would be covered by a mere examination of the products of the Iron Works of France and of other nations, as exhibited upon the occasion referred to.
I had published at intervals, in the "Transactions of the Iron and Steel Institute," certain investigations into points connected with the action of the blast furnace, in respect to which some explanation was, it appeared to me, still wanting. The experiments bearing on this question were communicated to that body, as the enquiry advanced, and were described in the language of the laboratory. It was not only my wish to present the general results I had arrived at in a more consecutive and less unattractive form than that necessarily adopted under such circumstances, but to correct any opinion therein stated, which further observation had shewn to require modification.
On communicating my ideas to the President and his Associates at the Board of the Iron Trade Association, a ready willingness was expressed to see my labours extended in any way likely to add to the utility of the object we had in view.
The depression in the iron trade, not of, Great Britain only, but throughout the world, was the cause of great uncertainty and uneasiness