Colonel Yule remarks that the Wootz was, in part at least, the famous Indian steel, the σίδηρος Ἰνδικὸς καὶ στόμωμα of the ‘Periplus,’ the Hunduwání of the mediæval Persian traders; the Andanicum or Ondanique of Marco Polo and the Alkinde of the old Spanish. In the sixteenth century the exportation was chiefly from Baticala in Canara. The King of Portugal complains (in a.d. 1591) of the large quantities shipped from Chaul to be sold in the Red Sea to the Turks and on the African coast about Melinde.[382] And I would note that this industry by no means argues civilisation in India or elsewhere:[383] as Dr. Percy remarks, ‘The primitive method of extracting good malleable iron direct from the ore, which is still practised in India and in Africa, requires a degree of skill very inferior to that which is implied in the manufacture of bronze.’
The system of Wootz-making, especially at Salem and in parts of Mysore, has been described by many writers. About a pound weight of malleable iron, made from magnetic ore, is placed, minutely broken and moistened, in a crucible of refractory clay, together with finely chopped pieces of wood (Cassia auriculata). It is packed without flux. The open pots are then covered with the green leaves of the Asclepias gigantea or the Convolvulus lanifolius, and the tops are coated over with wet clay, which is sun-dried to hardness. ‘Charcoal will not do as a substitute for the green twigs.’ Some two dozen of these cupels[384] or crucibles are disposed archways at the bottom of a furnace, whose blast is managed with bellows of bullock’s hide. The fuel is composed mostly of charcoal and of sun-dried brattis or cow-chips. After two or three hours’ smelting the cooled crucibles are broken up, when the regulus appears in the shape and size of half an egg. According to Tavernier, the best buttons from about Golconda were as large as a halfpenny roll, and sufficed to make two Sword-blades (?). These ‘cops’ are converted into bars by exposure for several hours to a charcoal fire not hot enough to melt them: they are then turned over before the blast, and thus the too highly carburised steel is oxidised.[385]
According to Professor Oldham,[386] ‘Wootz’ is also worked in the Damudah Valley, at Birbhúm, Dyucha, Narayanpúr, Damrah, and Goanpúr. In 1852 some thirty furnaces at Dyucha reduced the ore to kachhá or pig-iron, small blooms from Catalan forges; as many more converted it to pakká (crude steel), prepared in furnaces of different kind. The work was done by different castes; the Hindís (Moslems) laboured at the rude metal, and the Hindús preferred the refining work. I have read that anciently a large quantity of Wootz found its way westward viâ Pesháwar.
When last visiting (April 19, 1876) the Mahabaleshwar Hills near Bombay, I had the pleasure to meet Mr. Joyner, C.E., and with his assistance made personal inquiries into the process. The whole of the Sayhádri range (Western Ghats), and especially the ‘great-Might-of-Shiva’ mountains, had for many ages supplied Persia with the best steel. Our Government, since 1866, forbade the industry, as it threatened the highlands with disforesting. The ore was worked by the Hill-tribes, of whom the principal are the Dhánwars, Dravidians now speaking Hindustani.[387] Only the brickwork of their many raised furnaces remained. For fuel they preferred the Jumbul-wood, and the Anjan or iron-wood. They packed the iron and fourteen pounds of charcoal in layers; and, after two hours of bellows-working, the metal flowed into the forms. The ‘Kurs’ (bloom), five inches in diameter by two and a half deep, was then beaten into Táwás or plates. The matrix resembled the Brazilian, a poor yellow-brown limonite striping the mud-coloured clay; and actual testing disproved the common idea that the ‘watering’ of the surface is found in the metal. The Jauhar (‘jewel’ or ribboning) of the so-called ‘Damascus’ blade was produced artificially, mostly by drawing out the steel into thin ribbons which were piled and welded by the hammer. My friend afterwards sent me from India an inkstand of Mahabaleshwar iron.[388]
I could not learn from Hindus that they bury iron in the earth till the ‘core’ is reached. But they are well acquainted with tempering by cold immersion, as noticed by Salmasius (‘Exercit. Plin.’ 763): they still believe with Pliny, Justin, and a host of others, in ‘a Sword, the icebrook’s temper,’ and all hold that the hardening of metal depends much upon the quality of the water. They quench delicate articles in oil, a method also alluded to by Pliny, but they ignore his statement (xxviii. 41) that rust produced by goat’s blood gives a better edge to iron than the file. I am not aware that they have ever used for quenching purposes quicksilver, the best conductor of heat.
In Burmah, as in India, the chief peculiarity of iron-smelting is the use of green-wood fuel.[389] Throughout the mighty ‘Hollander’ Archipelago of the Farther East, this metal, known in former days only by importation, is now everywhere common. Java received the Egyptian arts from India, which colonised her about the beginning of the Christian era: the now untravelled Hindú was then a voyager and an explorer. Dr. Percy describes the iron-smelting of Borneo,[390] which produces the Parangilang, a peculiar Sword-like weapon equally fit for felling trees and men.[391] At Tahiti (Otaheiti), on the other hand, Captain Cook was unable to make the natives appreciate the use of metal till his armourer wrought an iron adze in shape like the native.
IRON IN CHINA.
The oldest, and indeed the only, Chinese word for iron is 鐵—tie, formerly pronounced tit. It is first mentioned among the tribute-articles of Yu in the Yu-Kung section of the Shoo-King,[392] and the latter has been estimated to date from b.c. 2200–2000. If this be fact, hieroglyphic tablet-writing flourished amongst the ‘Bak’ some five hundred years before the age popularly attributed to the Hebrew Scriptures, and when the Greeks had not begun to form a nation.[393] Either then the Sinologues, like the Sanskritists, have been deluded by the artful native into admitting the preposterous claims to antiquity of culture always advanced by semi-barbarous peoples; or, what is hardly likely, China formed a centre of Turanian civilisation wholly independent of Egypt and Chaldæa. Indeed, there appears to have been some contact of ideas in the matter of writing. The Kemite denoted ‘man’ and ‘eye’ by copying nature; and probably the Chinese did the same. But the Turanian symbols have lost, by the law of pictorial evanescence, the original forms: ‘man’ has become 人 = jin (No. 9),[394] a pair of legs; and ‘eye’ 目 = mŭh (No. 109), looks as if copied from a cat. The picture-origin of the Assyrian syllabary has also been satisfactorily established by the Rev. W. Haughton, but the later forms are as degraded as in the hieratic and demotic Egyptian.[395]
The passage above alluded to enumerates the articles of tribute as ‘musical gems-stones,’ iron, silver, steel, stones for arrow-heads, and sounding stones, with the skins of bears, great bears, foxes, jackals, and articles woven with their hair.’ Dr. Legge adds in a note: ‘By 鐵 = Tie, we are to understand “soft iron,” and by 鏤 = Low or Lowe, “hard iron” or “steel.” At the time of the Han dynasty, “iron-masters” (鐵宧) were appointed in the several districts of the old Leangchou, to superintend the iron-works. Tsa’e refers to two individuals mentioned in the “Historical Records”; one of the surname Ch’o, (卓氏), and the other of the surname Ch’ing (程), both of this part of the empire, who became so wealthy by their smelting that they were deemed equal to princes.’ According to the Rev. Dr. Edkins, ‘with the exception of this passage there is probably no distinct allusion to iron in writings older than b.c. 1000;’ and his statement seems to establish the date of Chinese technology and civilisation.
About b.c. 400 the celebrated author and philosopher Leih-Tze mentions steel, and describes the process of tempering it. In the ‘K’ang-hi-tse-tien’ (康熙字典), better known as ‘Kanghi’s Dictionary,’ published about a.d. 1710, the author represents the Serican contemporary of Aristotle as saying that ‘a red blade will cut Hu (jade or nephrite) as it would cut mud.’ Mr. Day makes this to mean a ‘reddish-coloured blade,’ red being one of the many tints which a clean surface of steel acquires in the process of tempering. It certainly cannot refer to red-hot steel, which would make no impression upon pietra dura. The description of steel-making in b.c. 400 is so far complete that it names and describes the several kinds. The first treatment produces ‘Twan-Kang’ or ball-steel, so called from the rounded bloom,[396] or ‘Kwan-Kang’ (sprinkled steel), because treated with cold affusion. There is also ‘Wei-Tie’ or false steel. The writer says: ‘When I was sent on official business to Tse-Chow and visited the foundries there, I understood this for the first time. Iron has steel within it, as meal contains vermicelli. Let it be subjected to fire a hundred times or more; it becomes lighter each time. If the firing be continued until the weight does not diminish, it is pure steel.’[397]