Jamie Brothers and his post from Peter King have covered well the
differences between the features found associated with a bloomery, a
finery, and a blast furnace. As well as a finery, a puddling hearth
should be considered a possibility. As these suggestions point out,
there's more than bloomery or blast. Moreover, there's more than a single
type of bloomery or blast furnace, or finery or puddling hearth. To best
identify what's on the ground, I'd suggest looking at Gordon's work for
the U.S.


Gordon, Robert B. 1997. Process Deduced from Ironmaking Wastes and
Artefacts. Journal of Archaeological Science 24: 9-18.

---. 1996. American Iron, 1607-1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

---. 1995. Material Evidence of Ironmaking Techniques. IA, The Journal of
the     Society for Industrial Archeology. 21.2:69-80.


For the bloomery process in particular see,


Gordon, Robert B. and David J. Killick. 1992. The Metallurgy of the
American Bloomery Process. Archeomaterials 6: 141-67.

Egleston, T. 1880. American Bloomery Process for Making Iron Direct from
the Ore. Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers 8:
515-550 + plates.

The American Bloomery Process is also covered quite well in theses on the
Carp River Forge by Tim Tumberg, Jason Menard and Andy Sewall, which are
located at Michigan Technological University. A fourth thesis focusing on
analysis of tap slags from the site is forthcoming.

Also, some images of The Carp River Forge are available at:
http://www.ss.mtu.edu/IA/IAWeb/carpriver/carpriver2002.html

The website wasn't designed to show the breadth of features, so such
photos are lacking. Besides not many features are visible at the site.

Gordon Pollard has info on the Clintonville Forge, a large, 19th century
Adirondack bloomery on-line at:

http://www.plattsburgh.edu/anthropology/clintonville.cfm


If anyone has interest in receiving a bibliography of articles I found
useful for my work on the Carp River Forge, which has focused on but not
been limited too an archaeometallurgical approach, please contact me off list.

Tim Mancl
IA Graduate Student
Michigan Technological University
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