naces in the West as to money-making, but being so
much larger than other furnaces its variations entailed
much more serious results. I am afraid my partner had
something to answer for in his Sunday morning visits
to the Lucy Furnace when his good father and sister
left the house for more devotional duties. But even if
he had gone with them his real earnest prayer could not
but have had reference at times to the precarious con-
dition of the Lucy Furnace then absorbing his thoughts.

The next step taken was to find a chemist as Mr.
Curry's assistant and guide. We found the man in a
learned German, Dr. Fricke, and great secrets did the
doctor open up to us. Iron stone from mines that had
a high reputation was now found to contain ten, fifteen,
and even twenty per cent less iron than it had been
credited with. Mines that hitherto had a poor reputa-
tion we found to be now yielding superior ore. The good
was bad and the bad was good, and everything was
topsy-turvy. Nine tenths of all the uncertainties of
pig-iron making were dispelled under the burning sun
of chemical knowledge.

At a most critical period when it was necessary for the
credit of the firm that the blast furnace should make its
best product, it had been stopped because an exceed-
ingly rich and pure ore had been substituted for an
inferior ore -- an ore which did not yield more than
two thirds of the quantity of iron of the other. The fur-
nace had met with disaster because too much lime had
been used to flux this exceptionally pure ironstone. The
very superiority of the materials had involved us in
serious losses.

What fools we had been! But then there was this con-
solation: we were not as great fools as our competitors.
It was years after we had taken chemistry to guide us

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