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BLASHFIELD 60 BLAST FURNACE sion of France and Belgium, and "Mare Nostrum," a powerful romance dealing with the Mediterranean. In 1920 he VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ visited the United States and spent some time in Mexico at the time of the Obregon revolution. BLASHFIELD, EDWIN HOWLAND, an American artist, born in New York City, Dec. 16, 1843; studied in Paris un- der Leon Bonnat; and began exhibiting in the Paris Salon in 1874. He returned to the United States in 1881, and has since distinguished himself by the execu- tion of large decorative works. Among his noteworthy productions in this line are one of the domes of the Manufac- turers' Building in the World's Colum- bian Exposition, the great Central Dome of the Library of Congress, and the new apartment of the Appellate Court in New York City; besides ceiling and panel work in clubs and residences. He dec- orated the Baltimore Court House, Iowa State Capitol, Great Hall, University of New York, Wisconsin State Capitol, etc. He lectured on art at Yale, Har- vard, and Columbia, and was the author, with Mrs. Blashfield of "Italian Cities." Author "Mural Painting in America" (lalo) , BLASPHEMY, slander or even well merited blame, applied to a person or in condemnation of a thing; also the utter- ance of injurious, highly insulting, cal- umnious, or slanderous language against a person in high authority, especially against a king. In the United States blasphemy is punishable in all of the older States of the Union, under the acts against profanity and indecent language, disorderly conduct, etc. The word is particularly applied to any profane language toward God; ad- dressed to, or spoken or written regard- ing God. In theology, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost means the sin of at- tributing to Satanic agency the miracles which were obviously from God. BLAST FURNACE, a structure built of refractory material in which metallic ores are smelted in contact with fuel and flux, the combustion of the fuel being ac- celerated by air under pressure. The materials are fed in at the top of the furnace, and after the ores are reduced, the metal, or in some cases the matte, and the resulting slag are tapped in a molten state at or near the bottom, as a rule the slags, being of less specific gravity than the metal, float upon it. A tjrpical vertical section of a blast fur- nace consists of a cylindrical or rectan- gular hearth or crucible, into which the air is admitted, under pressure, through tuyeres. On this hearth is superposed an inverted frustum of a cone forming the boshes, and on this inverted cone a right frustum of a cone, forming the shaft, is superposed. The shafts are in- closed by shells of sheet steel or by crino- lines formed of bands and beams, and carried on columns. The boshes are usually secured by bands and the cruci- bles by sheet metal jackets. The mate- rials are charged into the shaft so that layers of fuel alternate with layers of ore and flux, the taper of the shaft be- ing sufficient to permit of expansion as the materials are heated, and facilitate their delivery to the hopper formed by the boshes, where reduction of the ores takes place. The reduced ore, meeting the burning fuel near the tuyeres, is melted, and the liquid slag and metal drop into the hearth or crucible (the cinder or slag floating on the liquid metal), from which they are tapped out from time to time. By heating the blast before it enters the tuyeres combustion is accelerated, and the furnaces produce in- creased quantities of metal with reduced fuel consumption per unit of product. As a rule, blast furnaces smelting other ores than those of iron have the top of the furnace stack open, while, in those