The good was bad and the bad was good, and everything was topsy-turvy.
Nine tenths of all the uncertainties of pig-iron making were dispelled under the burning sun of chemical knowledge.
At a most critical period when it was necessary for the credit of the firm that the blast furnace should make its best product, it had been stopped because an exceedingly rich and pure ore had been substituted for an inferior ore--an ore which did not yield more than two thirds of the quantity of iron of the other.

The furnace had met with disaster because too much lime had been used to flux this exceptionally pure ironstone.

The very superiority of the materials had involved us in serious losses.
What fools we had been! But then there was this consolation: we were not as great fools as our competitors.

It was years after we had taken chemistry to guide us that it was said by the proprietors of some other furnaces that they could not afford to employ a chemist.

Had they known the truth then, they would have known that they could not afford to be without one.