Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Diorama |
Description |
Audio transcript: The MacIntyre Iron Works mined and smelted iron ore in the central Adirondacks between the years of 1832 and 1856. This diorama shows the works as it probably looked in 1847. By then, support facilities like the sawmill, boarding house, and Church of Tubal Cain had been erected in the village of Adirondac, shown at the left. Most of the iron-making technologies of the mid-nineteenth century are portrayed in this diorama. Iron ore is extracted from a mine on the hill to the right, while trees are being cleared away to provide the kilns in the background with the wood needed to make charcoal for the forges and furnaces. The Hudson River has been dammed to provide power to the waterwheels that operate the triphammers and blowing apparatus shown in the diorama. The blast furnace in the center is charged with iron ore, charcoal, and limestone flux, and is heated by hot blasts provided by vertical blowing tubs to the right. At the furnace hearth, laborers are tapping molten iron, which flows into pig molds in the sand floor of the casting house. The small brick structure to the left of the blast furnace is called a puddling furnace. Here, pigs of iron are reheated to produce higher-quality wrought iron. The refinery forge in the foreground, also called a bloomery forge, serves the same purpose. Here, a finer reheats pigs of iron in a charcoal forge fire until they reach a semi-molten state. A bloomer then removes the iron from the fire and pounds on the semi-molten bloom with a triphammer. The final products of the refinery forge are bars, or billets, of iron. These are stacked in front of the forge, awaiting transport to market. The inaccessibility of the remote McIntyre Iron Works finally forced the operation to close in 1856. The difficulty of removing titanium impurities from the iron ore was another reason for the failure of the ironworks. |
Notes |
Photographed by Richard Walker December 2004. |
Dimensions |
H-58 W-97.5 D-44 inches |
Collection |
Dioramas |
Catalog Number |
1978.068.0001 |
Imagefile |
073\1978.068.0001.JPG |
Species |
Diorama |