[The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis]@TWC D-Link bookThe Iron Puddler CHAPTER XVII 1/6
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MAN IS IRON TOO. For twenty-five minutes while the boil goes on I stir it constantly with my long iron rabble.
A cook stirring gravy to keep it from scorching in the skillet is done in two minutes and backs off blinking, sweating and choking, having finished the hardest job of getting dinner.
But my hardest job lasts not two minutes but the better part of half an hour. My spoon weighs twenty-five pounds, my porridge is pasty iron, and the heat of my kitchen is so great that if my body was not hardened to it, the ordeal would drop me in my tracks. Little spikes of pure iron like frost spars glow white-hot and stick out of the churning slag.
These must be stirred under at once; the long stream of flame from the grate plays over the puddle, and the pure iron if lapped by these gases would be oxidized--burned up. Pasty masses of iron form at the bottom of the puddle.
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