Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

The next day, the 17th of April, the sailor's first words were addressed to
Gideon Spilett.

"Well, sir," he asked, "what shall we do to-day?"

"What the captain pleases," replied the reporter.

Till then the engineer's companions had been brickmakers and potters,
now they were to become metallurgists.

The day before, after breakfast, they had explored as far as the point of
Mandible Cape, seven miles distant from the Chimneys. There, the long
series of downs ended, and the soil had a volcanic appearance. There were
no longer high cliffs as at Prospect Heights, but a strange and capricious
border which surrounded the narrow gulf between the two capes, formed of
mineral matter, thrown up by the volcano. Arrived at this point the
settlers retraced their steps, and at nightfall entered the Chimneys; but
they did not sleep before the question of knowing whether they could think
of leaving Lincoln Island or not was definitely settled.

The twelve hundred miles which separated the island from the Pomoutous
Island was a considerable distance. A boat could not cross it, especially
at the approach of the bad season. Pencroft had expressly declared this.
Now, to construct a simple boat even with the necessary tools, was a
difficult work, and the colonists not having tools they must begin by
making hammers, axes, adzes, saws, augers, planes, etc., which would take
some time. It was decided, therefore, that they would winter at Lincoln
Island, and that they would look for a more comfortable dwelling than the
Chimneys, in which to pass the winter months.

Before anything else could be done it was necessary to make the iron ore,
of which the engineer had observed some traces in the northwest part of the
island, fit for use by converting it either into iron or into steel.

Metals are not generally found in the ground in a pure state. For the
most part they are combined with oxygen or sulphur. Such was the case with
the two specimens which Cyrus Harding had brought back, one of magnetic
iron, not carbonated, the other a pyrite, also called sulphuret of iron. It
was, therefore the first, the oxide of iron, which they must reduce with
coal, that is to say, get rid of the oxygen, to obtain it in a pure state.
This reduction is made by subjecting the ore with coal to a high
temperature, either by the rapid and easy Catalan method, which has the
advantage of transforming the ore into iron in a single operation, or by
the blast furnace, which first smelts the ore, then changes it into iron,
by carrying away the three to four per cent. of coal, which is combined
with it.

Now Cyrus Harding wanted iron, and he wished to obtain it as soon as
possible. The ore which he had picked