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  • Bloomery Makes Wrought Iron – History of Inventions – Lesson 21

    A bloomery is an invention used in the middle ages. To get wrought iron from sand and other chemicals, the way a bloomery would work is they would have to burn charcoal, then add the sand then add more charcoal. This part of the process goes for about 4-7 hours.

    When the bloomery process is nearly finished, they would either break a hole in the bottom or unplug a plug.

    Once unplugged, a stream of molten iron and slag pours out. What comes out is called the bloom. Once the bloom is hardened, they pick it up with tongs, and they will reheat the bloom for about one minute in a furnace to a very high temperature without remelting it. Once it is hot enough, they move the reheated bloom onto an anvil and hammer off any slag. Once they have finished hammering the bloom, the bloom has now become wrought iron. They can now use the wrought iron to turn it into any tool they want.

  • WaterWheels in Egypt – History of inventions – Lesson 17

    WaterWheels have been used to power mills, saws, sifting flour, and for hammering stuff. The Egyptians used it for transporting water from river to land. When the Nile river was full, without the water wheel, they would have to move it by hand, but with the waterwheel, it was more accessible because it would move the water for them.

    The water wheel didn’t get used in Europe until after the roman empire fell apart. Because the Romans already had the number of slaves to do the work for them, and they didn’t want to pay the money for an invention they weren’t sure was going to work. So they stuck to slaves. But the reason it came back after the roman empire fell apart is that everybody had to help themselves. And the churches knew how to read and understand the Egyptian manuscripts on the waterwheel, and they had the funds to build it, so they created the waterwheel. They used it for hammering, milling flour, and many other tasks. Here are some videos on waterwheels:


    – Les