Originally Posted By: Peter B.
PeteM, I believe the Catalan furnace is what we would refer to as a bloomery. They were indeed used into the nineteenth century here. The reasons for this include the low cost of construction and the fact that they could produce high quality wrought iron.
Google Tannehill State Park. In the seventies they rebuilt an old blast furnace and produced iron. The Tannehill iron works started as a bloomery. Peter


Peter,

Thank you very much for educating me and perhaps a few others. http://www.tannehill.org/tsphist.html WOW! 22 tons of iron a day circa 1863. So, logically, they were familiar with the design. We can assume there were other Catalan Furnaces in operation.

Pete