✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Rented Virtue

x.com · 29 words · saved by 1 readers

To view keyboard shortcuts, press question mark View keyboard shortcuts Rented Virtue Will Manidis @WillManidis · 56m · 4 7 47 4.1K "Rented Virtue" - @WillManidis & @nabeelqu In January of 1709, in a steep gorge cut by the river Severn in the midlands of England, a 30-year-old Quaker named Abraham Darby fired a blast furnace for the first time. The furnace had been built decades earlier and blown up around 1703 by a previous operator. It sat derelict in the Coalbrookdale Valley, where coal and iron ore lay in abundance near the surface of the valley walls, and a narrow stream cut through the bottom with enough force to drive a water wheel and bellows. Darby had leased the wreck in September of 1708, the year prior, and spent a few months rebuilding it. As a boy in the 1690s, Darby had been an apprentice to Jonathan Freeth, a fellow Quaker who made malt mills. Darby understood from watching men brew ale that you did not smelt with coal, and if you smelt it with coke by baking out the

Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot. Try again Some privacy related extensions may cause issues on x.com. Please disable them and try again.

Explore this link on the map →

related reading