We saw lumps of iron, intensely
white-hot, and in all but a melting state, passed through rollers of
various size and pressure, and speedily converted into long bars, which
came curling and waving out of the rollers like great red ribbons, or
like fiery serpents wriggling out of Tophet; and finally, being
straightened out, they were laid to cool in heaps. Trip-hammers are very
pleasant things to look at, working so massively as they do, and yet so
accurately; chewing up the hot iron, as it were, and fashioning it into
shape, with a sort of mighty and gigantic gentleness in their mode of
action. What great things man has contrived, and is continually
performing! What a noble brute he is!
Also, I found much delight in looking at the molten iron, boiling and
bubbling in the furnace, and sometimes slopping over, when stirred by the
attendant. There were numberless fires on all sides, blinding us with
their intense glow; and continually the pounding strokes of huge hammers,
some wielded by machinery and others by human arms. I had a respect for
these stalwart workmen, who seemed to be near kindred of the machines
amid which they wrought,--mighty men, smiting stoutly, and looking into
the fierce eyes of the furnace fearlessly, and handling the iron at a
temperature which would have taken the skin off from ordinary fingers.
They looked strong, indeed, but pale; for the hot atmosphere in which
they live cannot but be deleterious, and I suppose their very strength
wears them quickly out.
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