Before closing our account of the smelting department of the iron manufacture, we think it right to call the attention of those who are interested in the iron trade to the consideration of the practicability of employing anthracite, or stone coal, in the process of smelting. In several parts of Great Britain and Ireland, but particularly in Scuth Wales, there are many thousands of acres of iron-stone near the surface, with a vast abundance of anthracite coal, lying in contiguous strata. This coal, notwithstanding it consists almost entirely of carbon, has been alleged, and is generally believed, to be incapable of smelting iron; and as there are in some districts (that of Llanelly, for instance,) no bituminous coal sufficiently near to these valuable beds of iron-stone, they remain unworked, under the presumption that they cannot be worked with profit, owing to those circumstances. Whether this prejudice is well or ill-founded, is a question that we cannot take upon ourselves to solve; but we will place before the reader a few facts that appear to bear directly upon the question, and leave the solution to those who are more practically conversant with the subject.

In several parts of the United States of America, where (as in South Wales) iron-stones and anthracite are plentiful, but bituminous coal wanting, recent attempts have been made to smelt the iron with anthracite alone; and all the reports that have reached us on that subject, agree in stating, that success has attended those attempts.