From archaelogiocal evidence, we know that, in the Siegen area of Germany, iron working predates recorded history. In fact, the earliest iron history precedes the Germanic peoples. The Celts were there first, working the iron deposits, and they were driven out by the Germanic peoples. Iron working was not continuous through the centuries, but it was intensive enough that special procedures had to be adopted. The problem was not with the ore or the smelters, but was with the supply of wood for making charcoal.
Charcoal is the necessary fuel to obtain the high temperatures that are needed for smelting iron ore. Because the ore and charcoal are combined in a chamber, it is a problem to introduce the oxygen into the chamber where it can burn with the charcoal (almost pure carbon). In the olden days, i.e., centuries ago, the furnaces were constructed on hilltops where the winds could blow into the chamber and supply the oxygen. The ovens had to be relatively small so that the air could get in. Whether a good quality iron would be produced was problematic; it depended on the winds.
Perhaps six centuries ago, it was discovered that water power could be used to operate bellows to blow air into the oven chamber. This was a big step ahead in iron production. Also, the water could be used to operate hammers for beating the iron. The iron coming directly from the furnace ( cast iron ) can be cast into pieces that do not require high stress tolerance. Pots and kettles are a good example of this. Better grades of malleable iron and steel, such as used in axes or shovels, had to be processed after the casting operation. For this, more heat and a lot of hammering was needed. So the heat took more charcoal, and the hammering used water power.
So far we have identified three elements that go into the making of iron. Power was provided by falling water. Heat was provided by charcoal. Iron ore was the raw material. The mills and furnaces had to be close to a water stream. The charcoal could not travel far. If it did travel, it became broken and converted to dust and did not work in the furnace. The iron ore could actually be transported some distance, but the water and charcoal had to be present near the site of operations.
In the Siegen area, the problem that was faced was a lack of charcoal. In order that iron making could proceed on a continuous basis, year after year or century after century, it was necessary to limit the number of days of production so that there would be enough trees to supply the charcoal. England had a similar problem in the eighteenth century, with its hundreds of furnaces. Charcoal was the limiting factor. It forced England to import much of its iron from the Baltic nations, where wood was plentiful. This is one reason that Alexander Spotswood favored iron production in Virginia. Virginia had all of the necessary elements that the homeland did not.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.