148 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



The exhaustive examination made of these specimens by the author 

 suggested that a comparatively high degree of metalkirgical know- 

 ledge must have prevailed more than a thousand years ago, and the 

 research was claimed to have yielded knowledge not previously 

 available on the subject of iron and steel specimens of ancient origin. 

 The collection of these ancient tools and instruments in the Colombo 

 Museum was the most complete of the kind in the world. The 

 investigation made suggested that the specimens represented 

 wrought iron rather than steel. The percentage of carbon was 

 generally low, but the edge of the chisel was shown to have been 

 cemented or carbonized — a fact which suggested that a knowledge 

 of hardening the cutting edge of tools was possessed by ancient 

 workers in metals. It would seem that the crucible process of steel 

 manufacture has long been known and practised in the East. 



A consideration of the origin of these specimens of ancient iron 

 led to the conclusion that the methods of making steel practised 

 in Ceylon probably reached that island from India at a very early 

 date, and there was strong evidence that the iron age preceded that 

 of bronze. Mr. J. M. Heath, in papers contributed to the Royal 

 Asiatic Society in 1837 and 1839, had expressed the opinion that the 

 tools with which the Egyptians covered their obelisks and temples 

 with hieroglyphics were made of Indian steel. There was no evidence 

 he claimed, that any of the nations of antiquity besides the Hindus 

 were acquamted with the art of making steel, and the claims of 

 India to a discovery which had exercised more influence upon the 

 arts conducing to civilization and the manufacturing industries than 

 any within the whole range of human invention was altogether 

 unquestioned. 



The Huntsman process of steel manufacture was probably. Sir 

 Robert Hadfield stated, only a development, although an indepen- 

 dent development, of methods long employed in India. The 

 manufacture of crucible cast steel in- Ceylon was now almost an 

 . extinct industry, a fact due to the operation of economic laws, as 

 steel can now be imported more cheaply from Europe than it can 

 be manufactured locally. One of the most notable ancient speci- 

 mens of iron was, of course, the famous pillar of Delhi, which was 

 a solid shaft of wrought iron v/elded together, and represented work 

 carried out at least 1,600 years ago. The Dhar iron monument, 

 42 feet in length, probably belonged to the year 321 a.d., and, owing 

 to its greater mass, was an even more remarkable tribute to the skill 

 of forgotten craftsmen in metals. 



