The Metallurgical Mystery of Verne’s Island Iron Furnace
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31686/ijier.vol14.iss2.4300Abstract
One mystery of Verne’s famous Lincoln Island (Mysterious Island, 1874)[i] continues: Did Verne use coal in his island's Catalan ironmaking furnace? Using coal in a Catalan furnace would have represented a significant prediction (albeit somewhat in retrospect), foreshadowing the rise of the modern blast furnace and the Steel Age, which would require coal-based blast furnaces. In the 1870s, the use of coal in iron-reducing furnaces was limited due to sulfur and other impurities, despite offering productivity, cost, and labor improvements necessary for mass steel production. Coal would be the key to the future world of iron and steel. Iron was made mainly in charcoal furnaces of various types before 1875. Verne’s fictional Catalan furnace was designed to address the problem of using coal instead of charcoal to reduce iron by going back to the future.
Unfortunately, translation issues, word etymology, the Victorian technical lexicon, and the evolving technical lexicon with the rise of the Industrial Revolution may have obscured Verne’s remarkable insight into coal, iron, and steel technology. While most common translations use coal for the French word “charbon.” Chardon was used in French before 1890 for the English words carbon, charcoal, and coal, allowing much leeway for translators. Historical and metallurgical analysis can help resolve the issue of coal use in a Catalan furnace, but together with the analysis of transitions and lexicon, they suggest that Verne predicted the revolutionary role of coal technology in iron and steel making.
[i] The publication date of 1874 is based on the first French edition. English editions are 1875. Verne was working on a manuscript in early 1873, so we can assume he was probably dealing with the iron technology of 1872
References
The publication date of 1874 is based on the first French edition. English editions are 1875. Verne was working on a manuscript in early 1873, so we can assume he was probably dealing with the iron technology of 1872
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 145 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Jules Verne, The Underground City, 1877, Sarah Crozier translation, Luath Books, 2005. Chapter –“On the Road,” p. 16
The Mysterious Island: Bilingual Edition (English - French) (French Edition), Amazon Kindle Edition, location 448
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 145 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Anthracite is harder than other coal types; therefore, it is known as hard coal. Other types of coal are considered sedimentary rocks, whereas anthracite is a metamorphic rock. It exists in limited amounts worldwide and could not have supported the exponential growth of the steel industry.
Bituminous coal is the most abundant type of coal. It is soft and contains a substance called bitumen, which is similar to tar. The carbon percentage in bituminous coal is normally between 77-87%. And there is water, hydrogen, sulfur and few other impurities. Coking is required to turn it into an iron furnace fuel.
Amazon Bilingual edition of Mysterious Island, Jan 2, 2015, p. 464
There is one fascinating paragraph in Underground City (1877) where Verne addresses the use of the word “houille” itself. "Whether the French word for coal (houille) is derived from farrier Houillos, who lived in Belgium in the twelfth century, we may assume the that the [coal] beds of Great Britain were the first ever worked.
A. Hume, “ A Few Notes on Coal,” Ulster Journal of Archaeology, First Series, Vol. 8 (1860), pp. 172-174 “Many of the mistakes which have arisen on this subject are attributable to the ambiguity of
the term employed. Thus a "coal" may mean, first, an ember or coal-of-fire,; second, a piece of charcoal; or, third, the mineral coal in any of its forms”
The Book of Royal Phraseology (1828) uses "chardon de terre" for coal.
I am presenting working with the Journal of Historical Metallurgy on the translation and lexicon of coal/charcoal in steel and ironmaking processes.
ibid
French text p. 447 Amazon Bilingual edition, Jan 2, 2015. Source of text is not clear, so there is still a question. Agnes Kinloch Kingston (1824–1913) used this French text in her (and her hushand) translation.
The Mysterious Island: Bilingual Edition (English - French) (French Edition), Amazon Kindle Edition, locations 380, 376, 427, 446, 463, 464
The Mysterious Island: Bilingual Edition (English - French) (French Edition), Amazon Kindle Edition, location 464
Louis Tolhausen, Technological Dictionary In The English, French, and German: Containing About 76,000 Technical Terms and Locutions employed in the Arts, Trades, and Industry In General, Leipzip Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1874
“Belgian miners have a tradition that the existence and use of coal was revealed to an old blacksmith, a poor but worthy man, by an angel from heaven” from Coalmines: A Sketch of Coal Regions of the Globe, Andrew Roy, 1876
Jules Verne, Underground City. Kindle edition, page 340
The Mysterious Island: Bilingual Edition (English - French) (French Edition), Amazon Kindle Edition, locations page 397
Page 447 Amazon Bilingual edition of Mysterious Island, Jan 2, 2015. French/English Ansi que le mineral, la houille scens peine et loin a la surface du sol / the coal as well as the ore was collected without trouble on the surface of the ground
Jules Verne, Vingt mille Lieues Sous Les Mers - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas [Bilingual] (French Edition) Kindle Edition, Location 2877
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1873, pages 137 -147 of Sidney Kravitz translation and the corresponding section in The Mysterious Island: Bilingual Edition (English - French) (French Edition), Amazon Kindle Edition, locations 448-449
William Butcher, Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography, Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York, 2006, p. 232
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 143 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Remy Nicolle, “The History of Iron Furnace using the Physical -Chemical Blast Furnace Model,” EDP Sciences, 2023
And A. Rist, N. Meysson, “A Dual Graphic Representation of Blast Furnace Heat and Mass Balances,” Journal of Metals, 19, 1967, pp. 50-59
Remy Nicolle, “The History of Iron Furnace using the Physical -Chemical Blast Furnace Model,” EDP Sciences, 2023
Interestingly, most of Ebelmen’s work was lost until its application by chemist Robert Arbuckle Berner (1935 – 2015).
Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1863, Page 5 of the Butcher Translation, Oxford Press and Page 39 the Lowell Bian Translation and Footnote one.
Henry Stafford Osborn, The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel Theoretical and Practical: in All Its Branches; with Special Reference to American Materials and Processes, Philadelphiα: Henry Carey Baird, Industrial Publisher, and London: Trübner & Co , 1869, pp. 400-415
Amazon Bilingual edition of Mysterious Island, Jan 2, 2015. French/English Ansi que le mineral, la houille scens peine et loin a la surface du sol, page 456
Ibid p. 137
Donald Wagner, ‘Blast Furnaces in Song-Yuan,”ESATM, Vol 18, 2001
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, pages 136 and 137 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Louis Figuier, The World Before the Deluge, (org. 1866), Jefferson Publications, 2016, p. 88
Donald Wagner, ‘Blast Furnaces in Song-Yuan,”ESATM, Vol 18, 2001, p 57
Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, editor Walter James Miller, annotated edition, Thomas Crowell, Publishers, 1978 pp. 71, 78, 83
Scientific American Supplement, August 17, 1878
Reminiscences of the early anthracite-iron industry, Samuel Thomas, an address delivered before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, at the California meeting, September 1899.
Henry Stafford Osborn, The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel Theoretical and Practical: in All Its Branches; with Special Reference to American Materials and Processes, 1869, p. 283
See Verne comment on Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 137 of Sidney Kravitz translation and pp. 400-415 in Osborn
Miškovičová, Z., Legemza, J., Demeter, P., Buľko, B., Hubatka, S., Hrubovčáková, M., Futáš, P., & Findorák, R. (2024). An Overview Analysis of Current Research Status in Iron Oxides Reduction by Hydrogen. Metals, 14(5), 589
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 137 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Ibid page 137
Ibid page 143
Donald Wagner, ‘Blast Furnaces in Song-Yuan,”ESATM, Vol 18, 2001, p.54
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, pages 482 to 485 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 143 of Sidney Kravitz translation
The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol. 24, No. 1238 (AUGUST 11, 1876
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 143 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, pages121(composition), 143 (use as tuyere), 145 (use as crucible for steel)of Sidney Kravitz translation
Henry Stafford Osborn, The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel Theoretical and Practical: in All Its Branches; with Special Reference to American Materials and Processes, Philadelphiα: Henry Carey Baird, Industrial Publisher, p.544
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, org. 1874, page 141 of Sidney Kravitz translation
Dolphin from The Blockade Runners (1865), and the Queen and Czar from The Adventures of Three Russians and Three Englishmen in South Africa (1872), the Forward from The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1874)
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Quentin R. Skrabec (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyrights for articles published in IJIER journals are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author for more visit Copyright & License.
