Long Pond Ironworks Virtual Tour
	Glossary
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Bellows

A bellows is an air pump. A simple manual bellows consists of two boards surrounded by an airtight pleated leather bag having a nozzle at a narrow end. A link from a cam attached to the axle of the waterwheel moves one of the boards to bring the boards together or to separate them, with a leather strip at the narrow end acting as a hinge; air is sucked in as the boards are pulled apart and expelled as the boards are brought together. One of the boards has a hole covered on the inside with a leather flap that acts as a valve. The valve permits air to enter the bellows through the hole when the handles are pulled apart, but seals the hole when the bellows is compressed, so that the air taken in cannot escape back out through the valve but must pass out through the nozzle in a stream, which is ducted to the furnace.

 

Casting House

The casting house is attached to the furnace. It's floor is a bed of sand. Molten iron, tapped from furnace, flowed into a trough dug into the sand bed and into side channels. The solidified iron bars formed in these troughs are called pigs.

 

Charcoal

Charcoal is a porous, solid product obtained when carbonaceous materials such as cellulose, wood, peat, bituminous coal, or bone are partially burned in the absence of air. Until the 18th century, charcoal was the chief fuel used in blast furnaces, as well as in glassmaking, blacksmithing, and metalworking. (1)

 

Charging Bridge

A structure leading to the top of the furnace. Ore, charcoal or coal and limestone (collectively called the "charge") were brought over the charging bridge and loaded into the opening at the top of the furnace.

 

Coal

Anthracite is the hardest of all the types of coal, with a lustrous black appearance. It has the highest carbon content of any of the coals and burns with the cleanest flame.

 

Bituminous coal is less dense than anthracite and is black in color. It has a lower heating value than anthracite and a higher heating value than lignite coal.

Lignite, often called brown coal because of its dark brownish color, has a layered appearance in which fragments of the original plant remains may be observed. Lignite burns with a smoky flame and tends to crumble after long exposure to air. It has the lowest heating value of any of the types of coal. (1)

 

Coke

Coke is the residue formed when coal is heated in the absence of air. It is primarily carbon with mineral matter and some residual volatile material. (1)

 

Trip Hammer

A trip hammer is a huge industrial version of a blacksmith's hammer and anvil with the hammer weighing as much as 300 pounds. The operation of this trip hammer is accomplished by a waterwheel powered trip cam, the great hammer falls onto a giant anvil several times a minute, shaping, purifying and strengthening the metal.

 

Waterwheel

Overshot: A method of powering a vertical water wheel where the water is delivered to the top of the wheel. The weight of the water and, to a much lesser extent the pressure of the flow, turns the wheel.

 

Breast: A method of powering a vertical water wheel where the water is delivered about halfway between the top and bottom of the wheel. The weight of the water and, to a much lesser extent the pressure of the flow, turns the wheel.

Undershot: A method of powering a vertical water wheel where the bottom of the wheel is placed in a river. The pressure of the water flowing against the blades or buckets causes the wheel to turn.

 

 Bibliography / References

1 - The Grolier 1996 Multimedia Encyclopedia; version 8.0.3.