The Ilfracombe Iron Company (I.I.C.) was an iron mining and smelting company that operated in Northern Tasmania in 1873 and 1874. The company's operations included a blast furnace, ore mine, water wheel, village, and jetty. The I.I.C. rebuilt a disused timber-haulage tramway, terminating at Ilfracombe—now the southern part of modern-day Beauty Point —which it extended at both ends to reach its iron ore mine and its jetty. The ruin of its blast furnace is significant, as one of the only three such ruins of 19th-Century iron-smelting blast furnaces in Australia and the only one in Tasmania. It is the only remaining ruin—in Australia—of a 19th-Century blast furnace that had an iron shell.
76-597: Iron ore from the company's mine was smelted at a foundry in Melbourne in 1873. Two bells were cast from this iron; the smaller one was exhibited at the Victorian Exhibition (1872–73) in Melbourne and the larger bell at the Vienna Exposition of 1873 . The company constructed a blast furnace alongside a tributary of Middle Arm Creek. It originally intended to power the blast machinery from a large water wheel , which
152-457: A stamper battery at the Leura Mine. The low-key sale and the shunning of Major and Longden hints at conflict among the shareholders; it is likely that, as the people managing the site work and operations, Major and Longden were seen as responsible for the failure to enter production. As the price of iron was still high at the time of the sale, Douglas probably intended to restart the works, but
228-449: A statute of uncertain date from c. 1300 , describes stones of 5 merchants' pounds used for glass; stones of 8 lb. used for beeswax , sugar , pepper , alum , cumin , almonds , cinnamon , and nutmegs ; stones of 12 lb. used for lead ; and the London stone of 12 + 1 ⁄ 2 lb. used for wool . In 1350 Edward III issued a new statute defining
304-400: A collection of Māori clubs, mats and cloaks, as well as gold, woodwork, kauri gum and geological specimens. Photographs of New Zealand scenery were shown and examples of flour and beer were provided by local industries. A collection of birds was prepared by a London taxidermist and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary was said to have been "astonished" by a pair of moa skeletons from
380-574: A model Istanbul residence, a representative hamam , a cafe, and a bazaar. The 1873 Ottoman pavilion was more prominent than its pavilion in 1867. The Vienna exhibition set off Western nations' pavilions against Eastern pavilions, with the host, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, setting itself at the juncture between East and West. A report by the Ottoman commission for the exhibition expressed a goal of inspiring with their display "a serious interest [in
456-577: A pattern to cast plaques to commemorate what it planned as its first casting of pig-iron in " October 1873 ". The pattern still survives—held by the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston —but the casting in October never occurred. In early November 1873, it emerged that the iron could not be run because the steam engine used to drive the blast machinery was too small. Another larger engine
532-577: A significant quantity in Australia. The smaller bell—weighing about 9 kg—was exhibited at the Victorian Exposition of 1872-1873. The larger bell—about 2 feet high, 18 inches wide at mouth, and weighing 210 lbs (95 kg)—was exhibited at the Vienna Exposition of 1873 , where it was inspected in September 1873 by Emperor Franz Joseph . It had the coat of arms of Melbourne on one side and, along
608-537: A stone also varied from city to city. During the early 19th century, states such as the Netherlands (including Belgium) and the South Western German states, which had redefined their system of measures using the kilogramme des Archives as a reference for weight (mass), also redefined their stone to align it with the kilogram. This table shows a selection of stones from various northern European cities: In
684-592: A stone of 14 pounds for trade but other values remained in use. James Britten, in 1880 for example, catalogued a number of different values of the stone in various British towns and cities, ranging from 4 lb to 26 lb. The value of the stone and associated units of measure that were legalised for purposes of trade were clarified by the Weights and Measures Act 1835 as follows: The English stone under law varied by commodity and in practice varied according to local standards. The Assize of Weights and Measures ,
760-463: A unit of measure for trade. (British law had previously been silent regarding other uses of the stone.) The stone remains widely used in the United Kingdom and Ireland for human body weight: in those countries people may commonly be said to weigh, e.g., "11 stone 4" (11 stones and 4 pounds), rather than "72 kilograms" as in most of the other countries, or "158 pounds",
836-568: A voluntary switchover by 1976. The stone was not included in the Directive 80/181/EEC as a unit of measure that could be used within the EEC for "economic, public health, public safety or administrative purposes", though its use as a "supplementary unit" was permitted. The scope of the directive was extended to include all aspects of the EU internal market from 1 January 2010. With the adoption of metric units by
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#1733086124510912-411: A waterwheel but in fact all actual operation of the furnace used steam power. It was powered first by a steam engine that had been hired for the purpose but proved too small. Later a larger engine was used, but it apparently it—or the blast cylinders themselves—was too small as well. The plant was intended to make use of water power. A dam was constructed across Snowey's Creek, a perennial stream. The dam
988-426: Is a mass of solidified iron and slag. If it exists at the remote site, the bosh skull could only have come from the furnace. However, even this does not prove conclusively that the furnace made molten pig iron that was successfully tapped, on 27 November 1873. All that is known for certain is that the second and third attempts to smelt iron—on 16 and 23 December 1873—both failed. These were the last attempts made, because
1064-491: The Canterbury Museum . More than 50 awards were collected by New Zealand exhibitors but, apparently, because of a problem of categorisation on the part of the jurors, the moa display was not among them. Stone (unit) The stone or stone weight (abbreviation: st. ) is an English and British imperial unit of mass equal to 14 avoirdupois pounds (6.35 kg). The stone continues in customary use in
1140-560: The Elbise depicted traditional Ottoman costumes, commissioned from artisans working in the administrative divisions ( vilayets ) of the Empire, worn by men, women, and children who resembled the various ethnic and religious types of the empire, though the models were all found in Istanbul. The photographs are accompanied by texts describing the costumes in detail and commenting on the rituals and habits of
1216-593: The Federation of British Industry informed the British government that its members favoured adopting the metric system. The Board of Trade , on behalf of the government, agreed to support a ten-year metrication programme. There would be minimal legislation, as the programme was to be voluntary and costs were to be borne where they fell. Under the guidance of the Metrication Board , the agricultural product markets achieved
1292-464: The Launceston Examiner of 20 September 1873, as follows, " The foundation of the furnace is laid in concrete 4 feet deep, on the top of this is 6 feet 6 in. of solid substantial masonry. The masonry consists of four grand arches in the form of a cross, thus constituting a compact block 14 feet square the arches being used instead of building the block quite solid, in order to lessen the chances of
1368-635: The Prater , a park near the Danube River , and preparations cost £23.4 million. It lasted from May 1 to November 2, hosting about 7,225,000 visitors. There were almost 26,000 exhibitors housed in different buildings that were erected for this exposition, including the Rotunda ( Rotunde ), a large circular building in the great park of Prater designed by the Scottish engineer John Scott Russell . (The fair Rotunda
1444-945: The Roman pound . Such weights varied in quality: the Yale Medical Library holds 10- and 50-pound examples of polished serpentine , while a 40-pound example at the Eschborn Museum is made of sandstone. The 1772 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica defined the stone: STONE also denotes a certain quantity or weight of some commodities. A stone of beef, in London, is the quantity of eight pounds; in Hertfordshire, twelve pounds; in Scotland sixteen pounds. The Weights and Measures Act 1824 ( 5 Geo. 4 . c. 74), which applied to all of
1520-658: The Tokyo Kaisei School (today the University of Tokyo ) in 1871 and at the capital's Confucian Temple in 1872; they eventually formed the core collection of the institution that became the Tokyo National Museum . Forty-one Japanese officials and government interpreters, as well as six Europeans in Japanese employ, came to Vienna to oversee the pavilion and the fair's cultural events. 25 craftsmen and gardeners created
1596-566: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , consolidated the weights and measures legislation of several centuries into a single document. It revoked the provision that bales of wool should be made up of 20 stones, each of 14 pounds, but made no provision for the continued use of the stone. Ten years later, a stone still varied from 5 pounds (glass) to 8 pounds (meat and fish) to 14 pounds (wool and "horseman's weight"). The Weights and Measures Act 1835 permitted using
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#17330861245101672-779: The 1870s, the Fitzroy Iron Works , the Lal Lal Iron Company , and the Lithgow Valley Iron Works . The ore deposit was the first of the deposits in the West Tamar area that were mentioned by Charles Gould in his report of 1866. It was located on private property at on a tributary of Middle Arm Creek, on the western flank of Peaked Hill, about 5 km south of the modern-day town of Beaconsfield . The company later located its smelting site adjacent to this deposit. A sample, consisting of " hematite and brown ore ", had
1748-410: The I.I.C. read, " George Town, Nov. 28 Twelve pigs Ilfracombe iron shipped per Tamar. Everything progressing well. " A local newspaper, the Launceston Examiner , expanded on this announcement by adding, " We believe the weight of the above is about two tons, and that the furnace was tapped on Thursday afternoon, a telegram having been sent to Mr Major that evening, asking him to arrange for shipping it by
1824-585: The Ilfracombe Iron Company, in smelting pig iron from the ore found on their property. We afterwards learnt, however, that this iron had not been fairly produced by any ordinary furnace process, and the subsequent collapse of the company showed this to be only too true. When attempts were made to produce the article in bulk from the large furnace, they utterly failed ". The announcement by telegram, on 28 November 1873, had merely said that, " Twelve pigs Ilfracombe iron shipped per Tamar "—making no mention of
1900-559: The Izu Peninsula on March 20, 1874. Some items of art were later recovered. One of the items is a ceramic square dish with grapes by Ogata Kenzan that was exhibited and was recovered. Osman Hamdi Bey , an archaeologist and painter, was chosen by the Ottoman government as commissary of the empire's exhibits in Vienna. He organized the Ottoman pavilion with Victor Marie de Launay , a French-born Ottoman official and archivist, who had written
1976-511: The Jinshin Survey, a months-long inspection tour of various imperial, noble , and temple holdings around the country. The most important products of each province were listed and two specimens of each were collected, one for display in Vienna and the other for preservation and display within Japan. Large-scale preparatory exhibitions with this second set of objects were conducted within Japan at
2052-579: The Magistrates of the Royal Boroughs of Scotland" and provided a county-by-county and commodity-by-commodity breakdown of values and conversions for the stone and other measures. The Scots stone ceased to be used for trade when the Weights and Measures Act 1824 ( 5 Geo. 4 . c. 74) established a uniform system of measure across the whole of the United Kingdom, which at that time included all of Ireland. Before
2128-476: The Oriental Bank took legal action to prevent the new company being formed and to secure repayment of its loan. An order went to the sheriff to sell off the assets. There was no auction but the assets were sold to Ayde Douglas for £805, roughly the amount owed to the bank. Douglas had secured the assets cheaply, but the other shareholders' interests were wiped out. The waterwheel was sold off and ended up powering
2204-664: The Ottoman Empire] on the part of the industrialists, traders, artists, and scholars of other nations...." The Ottoman pavilion included a gallery of mannequins wearing the traditional costumes of many of the varied ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire. To supplement the cases of costumes, Osman Hamdi and de Launay created a photographic book of Ottoman costumes, the Elbise-i 'Osmaniyye ( Les costumes populaires de la Turquie ), with photographs by Pascal Sébah . The photographic plates of
2280-574: The Royal Commission of Scotland recommended that the Troy stone be used as a standard of weight and that it be kept in the custody of the burgh of Lanark . The tron (or local) stone of Edinburgh , also standardised in 1661, was 16 tron pounds (22 lb 1 oz avoirdupois or 9.996 kg). In 1789 an encyclopedic enumeration of measurements was printed for the use of "his Majesty's Sheriffs and Stewards Depute, and Justices of Peace, ... and to
2356-552: The Tamar, on her outward trip yesterday ." This seemed to be incompatible with the earlier announcement in Melbourne on 24 November 1873, and appears to be the first time that success was announced in Tasmania. Arrangements had been made to load the pigs onto the steamer Tamar , as she passed down the Tamar River from Launceston , en-route to Melbourne, on 28 November 1873. Presumably, that
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2432-544: The UK and Ireland, such as professional boxing, wrestling, and horse racing, the stone is used to express body weights. The use of the stone in the former British Empire was varied. In Canada for example, it never had a legal status. Shortly after the United States declared independence, Thomas Jefferson , then Secretary of State , presented a report on weights and measures to the U.S. House of Representatives . Even though all
2508-400: The United Kingdom and Ireland for body weight . England and other Germanic -speaking countries of Northern Europe formerly used various standardised "stones" for trade, with their values ranging from about 5 to 40 local pounds (2.3 to 18.1 kg) depending on the location and objects weighed. With the advent of metrication , Europe's various "stones" were superseded by or adapted to
2584-460: The agricultural sector, the stone was, in practice, no longer used for trade; and, in the Weights and Measures Act 1985 , passed in compliance with EU directive 80/181/EEC, the stone was removed from the list of units permitted for trade in the United Kingdom. In 1983, in response to the same directive, similar legislation was passed in Ireland. The act repealed earlier acts that defined the stone as
2660-553: The blast furnace actually produced any pig iron, although the company announced in an ambiguous telegram that it had. Soon after the first settlement in Northern Tasmania, at York Town in 1804, colonial settlers found that there were extensive deposits of iron ore in the hills to the west of the Tamar estuary. Interest in the area was aroused again by the report in 1866 of the Government Geologist, Charles Gould . There
2736-414: The blast furnace—it would have been an elaborate deception, necessitating the involvement of at least some of the company's staff and management. The unlikelihood of such a deception has led some historians to dismiss Just's editorial; one seeing it as a " political statement ", by Just who was a shareholder in the rival British and Tasmanian Charcoal Iron Company . However, four different experts—examining
2812-508: The butcher could return the dressed carcasses to the animal's owner stone for stone, keeping the offal , blood and hide as his due for slaughtering and dressing the animal. Smithfield market continued to use the 8 lb stone for meat until shortly before the Second World War. The Oxford English Dictionary also lists: The Scottish stone was equal to 16 Scottish pounds (17 lb 8 oz avoirdupois or 7.936 kg). In 1661,
2888-615: The catalogue for the Ottoman Empire's exhibition at the 1867 Paris World's Fair . The Ottoman pavilion, located near the Egyptian pavilion (which had its own pavilion despite being a territory of the Ottoman Empire), in the park outside the Rotunde, included small replicas of notable Ottoman buildings and models of vernacular architecture: a replica of the Fountain of Ahmed III at Topkapı Palace ,
2964-460: The company afterwards ran out of money. It seems that the telegram announcement of 28 November 1873 was, most probably, part of a deliberate attempt to mislead—designed to help attract the additional capital that the company so desperately needed—as was the subsequent report of production recommencing in December 1873. The furnace was an open-top, cold-blast furnace. It was described, in an article in
3040-528: The conventional way of expressing the same weight in the US and in Canada. The invariant plural form of stone in this context is stone (as in, "11 stone" or "12 stone 6 pounds"); in other contexts, the correct plural is stones (as in, "Please enter your weight in stones and pounds"). In Australia and New Zealand, metrication has entirely displaced stones and pounds since the 1970s. In many sports in both
3116-421: The damp ascending into the body of the furnace. On the top of this masonry a large boiler plate cylinder 10 feet in diameter is erected, with a strong heavy cast iron ring at the base, from which through the masonry into the foundation holding down bolts are passed and fastened, thus firmly securing the upright cylinder ." The iron shell was lined with firebricks. The furnace had provision for conversion to recycle
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3192-566: The early 19th century, as in England, the stone varied both with locality and with commodity. For example, the Belfast stone for measuring flax equaled 16.75 avoirdupois pounds . The most usual value was 14 pounds. Among the oddities related to the use of the stone was the practice in County Clare of a stone of potatoes being 16 lb in the summer and 18 lb in the winter. In 1965,
3268-585: The failure of attempts to smelt on 16 and 23 December 1873, it became apparent that a larger blast engine and larger blowing cylinders were necessary and would require more capital. The company also had a debt to the Oriental Bank . It was decided to create a new company of larger capital, and issue new shares to existing shareholders in exchange for the old company's assets. This suited Longden and Major, who were unable to participate in any other kind of restructure, as both had run out of money by this time. However,
3344-422: The fair, Sano compiled a report on it which ran to 96 volumes divided into 16 parts, including a strong plea for the creation of a museum on western lines in the Japanese capital; the government further began hosting national industrial exhibitions at Ueno Park in 1877. Le Nil , a French Ship, set off from the port of Triest to Japan loaded with a number of items from the fair, in total 192 boxes. It sanke off
3420-469: The following analysis: " Iron ......... 60.6 [%] Silica ........ 2.4 [%] Sulphur and phosphorus, though carefully sought for were not detected ." Limestone was obtained from deposits nearby. The fuel used was charcoal, burnt from local timber. The force behind the new company was Captain Duncan Longden . The other major shareholders were Ayde Douglas (a Tasmanian lawyer and politician, who
3496-418: The furnace ruin in 1883, 1982, 1988, and 2012—failed to find any iron in the hearth of the old blast furnace. An unused cast iron tapping block from the furnace also survives; perhaps that block was a spare, but the absence of iron in the hearth is far harder to explain. It therefore seems possible that the ongoing problem with the furnace—a mismatch between the relatively small capacity of the blast machinery and
3572-460: The furnace was laid on 12 May 1873, by David Spence, a Melbourne merchant, who was a shareholder. Progress was rapid, with a visitor to the site, in September 1873, reporting extensive progress, with about 100 men working at the site and the work nearly completed. A fire was lit in the furnace in August 1873 and maintained thereafter, to dry out the furnace to be ready for production. The company prepared
3648-516: The furnace. It was 30 feet in diameter and 4 feet wide, with 64 buckets and heavy cast-iron bosses 3 feet in diameter through which the shaft passed. This large waterwheel apparently was never used by the Ilfracombe Iron Co. but was later used to power a gold mine stamper battery. There were two charcoal kilns, halfway between the dam and the furnace, each 200 feet long by 20 feet wide. The walls and roof were of sod, with cast-iron portholes along
3724-407: The furnace—but the obvious assumption was that the iron had come from the company's blast furnace. In any case, the day after the telegram, the pigs were on the sea en route for Melbourne; there was virtually no opportunity for locals to see the pigs before they disappeared from the district. And, unusually, the blast furnace did not remain in continuous production after its supposed first tapping. If
3800-421: The iron ore was smelted with coke and limestone in a furnace—probably a cupola furnace —and various castings were made, including two bells, seven 'pigs' weighing 2- stone (12.7 kg) and one pig weighing 3- hundredweight (152 kg), and " half-a-dozen 18lb. [8.2 kg] cannon balls ". It seems that a total of around 400 kg of iron was made, the first time that Tasmanian iron ore had been smelted in
3876-521: The iron price later collapsed. The furnace site was abandoned. The first hint that the Ilfracombe Iron Company may have been concealing something about the outcome of its iron smelting came in an editorial, by T.C.Just, in the newspaper the Cornwall Chronicle ,(also reprinted as an article in the Tasmanian ), in December 1874. It read, " It is just twelve months since we recorded the partial success of
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#17330861245103952-530: The kilogram from the mid-19th century onward. The name "stone" derives from the historical use of stones for weights, a practice that dates back into antiquity. The Biblical law against the carrying of "diverse weights, a large and a small" is more literally translated as "you shall not carry a stone and a stone ( אבן ואבן ), a large and a small". There was no standardised "stone" in the ancient Jewish world, but in Roman times stone weights were crafted to multiples of
4028-460: The main pavilion, as well as a full Japanese garden with shrine and a model of the former pagoda at Tokyo's imperial temple . Apart from the collection of regional objects, which focused on ceramics , cloisonné wares , lacquerware , and textiles, the displays also included the female golden shachi from Nagoya Castle and a papier-maché copy of the Kamakura Buddha . The year after
4104-617: The new jetty. Vienna Exposition The 1873 Vienna World's Fair ( German : Weltausstellung 1873 Wien ) was the large world exposition that was held from 1 May to 31 October 1873 in the Austria-Hungarian capital Vienna . Its motto was "Culture and Education" ( German : Kultur und Erziehung ). As well as being a chance to showcase Austro-Hungarian industry and culture, the World's Fair in Vienna commemorated Franz Joseph I 's 25th year as emperor . The main grounds were in
4180-485: The off-gases to heat the blast, although no stoves to heat the blast were ever built. This suggests another probable reason for its failure; a furnace and blower possibly sized for hot-blast operation, but used as a cold-blast furnace. A casting shed 95 feet long by 30 feet wide, with a wooden shingled roof was constructed; it was expected that casting of pig iron would occur every 12-hours. The blowing cylinders were made by Messrs Robertson Bros. of Melbourne. The equipment
4256-487: The regions and ethnic groups in question. Professor Lodovico Brunetti of Padua , Italy first displayed cremated ashes at the exhibition. He showed a model of the crematory , one of the first modern ones. He exhibited it with a sign reading, "Vermibus erepti, puro consummimur igni," in English, "Saved from the worms, we are consumed by the flames." New Zealand was represented at the 1873 Vienna International Exposition by
4332-493: The rim on the other side, the words "Ilfracombe Iron Company". The ability to cast bells directly from the pig-iron demonstrated its quality. The on-site manager was a civil engineer, Benjamin Hawkins Dodds, who had experience in the Scottish iron industry. The construction of the furnace was the responsibility of a Swedish furnaceman, Karl Haine, with the advice of James Baird Thorneycroft from Scotland. The foundation stone of
4408-500: The same day as that report of production commencing, 20 December 1873, a prominent shareholder, Ayde Douglas , was on his way to the site to meet Major and Longden and find out for himself what was happening. Another attempt at smelting took place on 23 December 1873, using still larger blast cylinders made of wood at the site, after which the furnace was never relit. The company had exhausted its capital, wasting some of it on assets that it never put to use, such as its waterwheel. After
4484-401: The sides to maintain the necessary restricted air flow for the charcoal-burning process. There was a disused timber tramway for the former Ilfracombe saw-mill, which conveniently ran alongside the iron ore deposit. It had been laid down in 1857 and become overgrown and rotten by the 1870s, so the track needed total reconstruction. At the river end, it needed extension to the north to the site of
4560-399: The size of the furnace—was enough to prevent the furnace reaching a suitable temperature to smelt iron ore and produce molten pig-iron. If so, the well-made furnace could never have produced any iron. Against this conclusion there is but one piece of physical evidence; an archaeological research map of the blast furnace site shows a 'bosh skull' located nearby to the furnace ruin. A bosh skull
4636-417: The stone weight, to be used for wool and "other Merchandizes", at 14 pounds, reaffirmed by Henry VII in 1495. In England, merchants traditionally sold potatoes in half-stone increments of 7 pounds. Live animals were weighed in stones of 14 lb; but, once slaughtered, their carcasses were weighed in stones of 8 lb. Thus, if the animal's carcass accounted for 8 ⁄ 14 of the animal's weight,
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#17330861245104712-450: The twelve pigs (two tons) of iron despatched in November 1873 on the s.s. Tamar had not come from the furnace—since no other furnace was working nearby—the pigs would either be Ilfracombe iron smelted from its ore elsewhere—like the iron smelted in Melbourne in November 1872—or not Ilfracombe iron at all. If the iron was from another source—even allowing for the relatively remote location of
4788-686: The weights and measures in use in the United States at the time were derived from English weights and measures, his report made no mention of the stone being used. He did, however, propose a decimal system of weights in which his "[decimal] pound" would have been 9.375 ounces (265.8 g) and the "[decimal] stone" would have been 5.8595 pounds (2.6578 kg). Before the advent of metrication, units called "stone" ( German : Stein ; Dutch : steen ; Polish : kamień ) were used in many northwestern European countries. Its value, usually between 3 and 10 kg, varied from city to city and sometimes from commodity to commodity. The number of local "pounds" in
4864-403: The works of the Ilfracombe Iron Company. The furnace answered admirably. The company begins work with unexceptional [sic] prospects.' " There seems to have been nothing corresponding to it, in the local press in Northern Tasmania.This would be the beginnings of the mystery surrounding the first iron production of Ilfracombe Iron Company. A few days later, a telegram received from the manager of
4940-435: Was about half a mile from the furnace and had a 50-foot wall. The water passed through a channel and into a flume with a fall of 97 feet. About halfway along the flume, a smaller horizontal waterwheel powered a sawmill, with the water continuing in the remaining part of the flume to the main waterwheel. After the waterwheel, the water ran through an underground passage to flow into the creek. The waterwheel stood 120 feet from
5016-434: Was also an owner of a previous, then dormant timber venture in the same area), James Major (of the Melbourne engineering firm Doyne, Major and Willet), James Bickerton, John Robb, David Spence, and two others. The company was at work for some time before it was officially registered. During this period, it was mainly Longden and Major who were active. The two secured a 3,000 acre leasehold in 1872. The Ilfracombe Iron Company
5092-501: Was an increase in pig-iron prices in the early 1870s, which led to the formation of a number of colonial era iron-making ventures in Australia. The price of imported pig-iron increased, from £4 10s per ton in 1870 to £9 per ton in 1873 greatly advantaging locally manufactured iron. However, this high price did not last long, as iron-making capacity increased and pig-iron was once again imported cheaply as ballast in sailing ships returning from England to Australia. The Ilfracombe Iron Company
5168-420: Was described, in an article in the Launceston Examiner of 20 September 1873, as follows, " double cylinders 15 inches in diameter, 24 inches stroke, having a minimum velocity of 60 strokes per minute, and discharge the air into a large wrought iron receiver, capable of contaiting 128 cubic feet, and thence. through the tuyeres into the furnace ". The original plan was for this blast machinery would be powered by
5244-571: Was destroyed by fire on 17 September 1937.) The Russian pavilion had a naval section designed by Viktor Hartmann . Exhibits included models of the Port of Rijeka and the Illés Relief model of Jerusalem. The Japanese exhibition at the fair was the product of years of preparation. The empire had received its invitation in 1871, close on the heels of the Meiji Restoration , and a government bureau
5320-511: Was done by loading the pigs at the Ilfracombe Company's jetty. It seems that James Major accompanied the pigs to Melbourne, arriving on 29 November 1873, perhaps intending show off the iron to Victorian shareholders and others. It was soon apparent that the furnace had not stayed in service, as would be usual once production of iron had commenced. An optimistic report appeared, on 20 December 1873, stating that production had recommenced. It
5396-416: Was erected but not used. Despite several design iterations, the steam-powered blast machinery was severely under-sized. Before this situation could be rectified, by raising more capital, the Oriental Bank foreclosed. The assets were sold cheaply; possibly, the new owner intended to restart operations. However, a large fall in the price of iron seems to have ended that possibility. It remains questionable that
5472-466: Was established to produce an appropriate response. Shigenobu Okuma , Tsunetami Sano , and its other officials were keen to use the event to raise the international standing of Japanese manufactures and boost exports . 24 engineers were also sent with its delegation to study cutting-edge Western engineering at the fair for use in Japanese industry . Art and cultural relics at the exhibit were verified by
5548-485: Was on its way from Melbourne, which would be used, " till the water wheel is ready to perform the work, and will then standby to be used in time of emergency, should such arise ". On 24 November 1873, a small article appeared in the Melbourne newspaper The Argus . It read, " WITH reference to iron mining in Tasmania, the Launceston Examiner reports :—' A quantity of iron has been run off most successfully at
5624-689: Was one of four ventures that smelted iron from local iron ore, in Tasmania during the 1870s; the others were, the British and Tasmanian Charcoal Iron Company , the Tamar Hematite Iron Company —both nearby on the Tamar estuary—and the Derwent Iron Company. A fifth venture, the Swedish Charcoal Iron Company never went beyond issuing a prospectus. There were also three commercial iron-smelting operations in mainland Australia during
5700-517: Was registered on 28 January 1873. It had an authorised capital of £50,000 in 10,000 £5 shares. 2000 of the shares were issued as fully paid, probably in exchange for properties, assets and services that the new company needed. The remaining shares were partly paid, to £4. Before the Ilfracombe Iron Company was even registered, it had sent iron ore to Melbourne for a trial smelting, at the Railway Foundry, owned by Drysdale and Fraser. In November 1872,
5776-458: Was reported—presumably based on a communication with the company—that, " The new vertical iron cylinders at the Ilfracombe Iron Company's works have been completed, and found to answer admirably. The necessary repairs to the furnace have been carried out, and fire-bricks of the proper description substituted for the inferior ones which were at first unwittingly put in, and active operations were commenced last Tuesday " [16 December 1874]. However, on
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