The invention of converting bar iron into steel by dipping it into other fused iron, and suffering it to remain there several hours, is commonly ascribed to Reaumur[826]. But this process is mentioned by Agricola, Imperati and others, as a thing well-known and practised in their time.
Pliny, Daimachus[827] and other ancient writers mention various countries and places which, in their time, produced excellent steel. Among the dearest kinds were the ferrum Indicum and Sericum. The former appears to be the ferrum candidum, a hundred talents of which were given as a present to Alexander in India[828]. Is it not probable that this was the excellent kind of steel still common in that country, and known under the name of wootz, some pieces of which were sent from Bombay in the year 1795 to the Royal Society of London? Its silver-coloured appearance when polished may have, perhaps, given occasion to the epithet of candidum. The method of preparing it is still unknown, but it is supposed to be a kind of fused steel[829]. This however is a mere conjecture, unsupported by any proofs[830]. At what time was damasked steel obtained from the Levant?
[Three kinds of steel are now principally manufactured; bar or blistered steel, shear steel and cast steel.
The bar or blistered steel is made by the process of cementation: this consists in putting bars of the purest malleable iron alternately with layers of charcoal or soot into a proper furnace; the air being carefully excluded and the whole kept at a red heat for several days. By this process the carbon combines with the iron, altering its texture from fibrous to granular or crystalline, and rendering the surface blistered. The action of the carbon occasions fissures and cavities in the substance of the bars, rendering them unfit for tool-making, until they are condensed and rendered uniform by the operation of tilting, i. e. compression by a powerful hammer worked by machinery.
Shear steel is made by breaking up bars of blistered steel into lengths of about 18 inches, and binding four or six of them together with a steel rod, and then heating them to a full welding heat, the surface being covered with fine clay or sand to prevent oxidation. They are then drawn out into a bar, hammered, tilted and rolled. In this state it is susceptible of a much finer polish, and is also more tenacious and malleable, and fit for making strong springs, knives, &c.
Cast steel, which was first made by Mr. Huntsman at Attercliff, Sheffield, in 1770, is made by melting blistered steel, casting it into ingots and rolling it into bars. In this condition its texture is much more uniform, closer and finer grained. The different degrees of hardness required for steel are given by the process called tempering, which is effected by heating the steel up to a certain temperature, and then quenching it suddenly in cold water. Its hardness and brittleness are thus much increased, but it may be again softened by exposure to heat simply.]
FOOTNOTES
[806] In regard to the hardening of iron and the quenching of it in water, nothing, as far as I know, occurs in the Hebrew text of the Scriptures. The passages where it seems to be mentioned are, Isaiah, chap. xliv. ver. 12. “The smith bends the iron, works it in a fire of coals, and forms it with the hammer; he labours on it with a strong arm,” &c. according to the translation of Michaelis. It may indeed be translated otherwise, but it certainly alludes to the formation of an image of metal. The words, chap. liv. ver. 16, are still more general.
Iron, barzel, often occurs, and in some passages indeed steel may be understood under this name; for example, in Ezekiel, chap. xxvii. ver. 19, ferrum fabrefactum, or, according to Michaelis and others, sabre blades from Usal (Sanaa in Yemen). A pretty clear indication of steel is given in Jeremiah, chap. xv. ver. 12: “Iron from the north,” which is described there as the hardest. To the north of Judæa was situated Chalybia, the ancient country of steel. It appears that the Hebrews had no particular name for steel, which they perhaps comprehended under the term barzel, or distinguished it only by the epithet Northern, especially as the later Jews have for it no other name than אסטמא, istoma, which however is nothing else than the Greek στόμωμα, and signifies rather steeling or hardening.
Chalamisch is certainly a hard kind of stone; granite or porphyry, according to Michaelis, who treats expressly of it in Supplem. ad Lex. Hebr. N. 740.