Note 385 — Chapter VI · THE PROTO-SIDERIC OR EARLY IRON AGE OF WEAPONS.
Reading edition
This is the process of working Wootz given by Mr. Heath; others pack the metal with finely-chopped stalks of asclepias as well as cassia. Mr. Mallet has described the Indian manufacture of large iron masses in
The Engineer
, vol. xxxiii. pp. 19, 20. Beckmann (
loc. cit. sub v.
‘Steel’) notices the bloomeries or furnaces. The
Penny Cyclopædia
and Ure’s
Dict. of Chemistry
(the latter the best), London, Longmans, 1839, may also be consulted. Dr. Percy gives a long account (pp. 254–66) of iron-smelting in India from Mr. Howard Blackwell. He notes three kinds of furnaces:—
1. Rude, like chimney-pots; used by the hill-tribes of Western India, the Deccan, and the Carnatic.
2. Simple Catalan forge } Central India and the
3. Early form of Stückofen N.W. Provinces.
The anvil is a square iron without beak. Three kinds of Indian bellows are noticed (pp. 255–56). The people, who love stare super antiquas vias, ignore the hot blast: this contrivance causes a more active combustion, an ‘ultimate fact’ as yet unexplained.