162 Prof. Royle’s Lecture on the Great Exhibition of 1851, 
not why India might not under such superintendence prepare 
some that might become articles of commerce: such, for instance, 
as benzoic and citric acids, the salts of morphia, narcotin as an 
efficient substitute for quinine in a number of cases; with some 
extracts and tinctures of substances which lose their effect by 
transmission and the influence of physical agents. 
The sulphate of magnesia is interesting as prepared from mag- 
nesite or the natural carbonate of magnesia of the Peninsula. 
etallurgy.—Though it is difficult to understand how a prim- 
itive people could have overcome the difficulties of smelting iron 
and of forging steel, yet as we know from a variety of sources 
that the Hindoos have long known both, they must have over- 
come the difficulties which have stopped others. But it is hardly 
less wonderful to see a native with no other tools than his hatchet 
and his hands proceed to smelt iron, which he will convert into 
steel capable of competing with the best prepared in Europe. 
For this the prevalence.of the black oxyd of iron, in the state of 
iron sand, and the common use of charcoal as a fuel, give him 
some facilities, while he prepares a furnace with clay, and makes 
bellows with the leaves of the forest. [Of this last, a specimen 
was shown from the hills of Mirzapore. 
Tron and steel, though not known in the earliest periods of the 
history of some of the civilized nations of antiquity, have yet 
been known from very early periods. Iron is mentioned as being 
applied to a variety of purposes in the earliest chapters of the 
Bible. But as it is too soft to be used for all the purposes stated, 
it has been justly inferred that they must have known of modes 
of hardening it, and reference is made to that kind which is called 
“northern iron.” But as the term of “northern” is also applied 
to the roads of commerce and of conquest from the East, because 
these entered Judea by the north, that is, by way of Damascus 
and Syria, so Mr. Aikin looks to the countries east of Babylonia 
as those where this hard iron and steel was produced ; and this 
is confirmed by the passage in Ezekiel, where Dan and Javan 
are described as bringing “bright iron, cassia, and calamus,” 
which are all Indian products, to Tyre. j 
The Hebrew name of steel, paldah, is evidently the sam 
word as the Arabic foulad, which is also in use in Persia, wheté 
Indian steel is known by the name of foulad-i-hind. Txyen noW 
the best Persian swords are made with steel imported from India, 
and Mr. Wilkinson has ascribed the markings on the famed Damas- 
cus blades to their having been made with Indian steel, which 
er i formed an article of trade from Bombay to the Persia 
Mr. Heath, at one time the managing director of the India Iron 
and Steel Company, and whose steel obtained a prize at the Ex- 
hibition, even says, “We can hardly doubt, that the tools with 
