FINERS of Gold and Silver, are those who purify and part those metals from other coarser ones by fire and acids. They are also called partiers in our old law-books, and sometimes departers.

FINERY, in the iron-works, is one of the two forges at which they hammer the low or pig iron.

Into the finery they first put the pigs of iron, placing three or four of them together behind the fire, with a little of one end thrust into it; where, softening by degrees, they stir and work them with long bars of iron, and expose at different times different parts to the blast of the bellows, in order to refine it as equally as possible, till the metal runs together with a round mass or lump, which they call a half bloom. They then take this out, and give it a few strokes with their hammers; afterwards they carry it to a great heavy hammer, raised by the motion of a water-wheel; where, applying it dexterously to the blows, they presently beat it out into a thick short square. This they put into the finery again, and heating it red-hot, they work it under the same hammer till it comes to be in the shape of a bar in the middle, but with two square knobs at the ends, which they call an ancony. It is then carried into the other forge called the chaffry.