[385] 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.
[386] Report of 1852.
[387] The dialect is much more ancient than we usually suppose: it existed long before Akbar the Great and his ‘Urdú zabán’ (camp language), for we find that the poet Chand wrote in it during the twelfth century.
[388] As will appear in Part II. there are many processes for making the Damascus; the exact markings, however, are best produced by that noticed above.
[389] Pp. 270–3, from the descriptions of Mr. W. T. Blanford, of the Geol. Survey of India.
[390] Pp. 273–5; borrowed from Travels in Borneo, by Dr. C. A. L. M. Schauer during 1843–47, p. 109.
[391] The Swords of the Borneo Dyaks and the islanders of Timor and Rotti are photographed by the Curator of the Christy Collection.
[392] Mr. Day quotes, book i., the Tribute of Yu, Legge’s Chinese Classics, vol. iii. part i. p. 121 (Trübner, London, 1865).