Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
shelter statues, which lead to a double-turned staircase with a
bannister of wrought iron to the ground level, where the pig iron
flowed out. Everything seems to have been built to allow noble
visitors towatch the spectacle of 'Vulcan's cave' fromabove. Behind
the blast furnace, two large buildings were devoted to the various
activities for the production of iron. Other buildings received the
ore brought in carts. Still others contained the lodgings for the
permanent workers and the fine dwelling of the steward. Buffon
reserved a pavilion for himself where he stayed during his visits.
The last sentence would suggest that he immersed himself totally in
his work when he was there.
The forge produced reasonable quantities of iron which Buffon
said was the best in the region, and which he sold, but he also used the
complex there to carry out experiments on melting and cooling rates
of iron, the results of which he interpreted and used to calculate the
age of the Earth.
Buffon stated in 1778 what he did:
I caused ten bullets [spheres] to be made of forged and beaten iron;
the first, of half-inch diameter; the second, of an inch; and so on
progressing to five inches: and all the bullets were made of iron of
the same forge, their weights were found nearly proportionable to
their volumes.
The spheres were placed in the furnace after which the bellows were
driven by two wheels turned by the waters of the Arman¸on providing
oxygen that helped elevate the temperature in the furnace. Once the
spheres had been heated to being incandescent (white hot), close to but
less than 1,537 degrees centigrade, the melting point of iron, they
were placed in a pit and allowed to cool. The temperature in this
cooling pit was approximately minus ten degrees which Buffon took
to be the actual temperature of the Earth at that time. Alongside the
cooling sphere, Buffon placed a sphere of identical material and dia-
meter that had already cooled to the ambient temperature, and this
