Ixxiv REPORT — 1875. 



Moreover, iu the Great Pyramid a piece of iron was found in a place where 

 it must have lain for 5000 years*. The tendency of iron to oxidize must 

 render its prcseiTation for any long period rare and exceptional. The quality 

 of iron which is now made by the native races of Africa and India is that 

 which is known as wrought iron ; in ancient times, Dr. Percy says the iron 

 which was made was always wrought iron. It is very nearly pure iron, and 

 a very small addition of carbon would convert it into steel. Dr. Percy says 

 the extraction of good malleable iron directly from the ore " requires a degree 

 of skill very far inferior to that which is implied in the manufacture of 

 bronze "f. And there is no great secret in making steel ; the natives of India 

 now make excellent steel in the most primitive way, which tliey have prac- 

 tised from time immemorial. When steel is to be made, the proportion of 

 charcoal used with a given quantity of ore is somewhat larger, and the blast 

 is applied more slowly than when wrought iron is the metal required J. 

 Thus a vigorous native working the bellows of skin would make wrought iron 

 where a lazy one would have made steel. The only apparatus required for 

 the manufacture of the finest steel from iron ore is some clay for making a 

 small furnace four feet high and from one to two broad, some charcoal for 

 fuel, and a skin with a bamboo tuyere for creating the blast. 



The supply of iron in India as early as the fourth and fifth centuries seems 

 to have been unlimited. The iron pUlar of Delhi is a remarkable work for 

 such an early period. It is a single piece of wrought iron 50 feet in length, 

 and it weighs not less than 17 tons§. How the Indians forged this large 

 mass of iron and other heavy pieces which their distrust of the arch led them 

 to use in the construction of roofs, we do not know. In the temples of Orissa 

 iron was used in large masses as beams or girders iu roof-work in the 

 thirteenth century ||. 



The influence of the discovery of iron on the progress of art and science 

 cannot be over-estimated. India well repaid any advantage which she may 

 have derived from the early civilized communities of the West if she were the 

 first to supply them with iron and steel. 



An interesting social problem is afforded by a comparison of the relative 

 conditions of India and this country at the present time. India, from thirty 

 to forty centuries ago, was skilled in the manufacture of iron and cotton goods, 

 manufactures which in less than a century have done so much for this country. 

 It is true that in India coal is not so abundant or so universally distributed 

 as in this country. Yet, if we look still further to the East, China had pro- 

 bably knowledge of the use of metals as soon as India, and, moreover, had a 



* Vyse's 'Pyramids of Gizeh,' vol. i. p. 275. 

 t Percy's ' Iron and Steel,' p. 873. .| Ibid. p. 259. 



§ Fergusson's ' History of Architecture,' vol. ii. p. 460 : and ' Eude Stone Monuments,' 

 pp. 481-3. CLUiuinghain's ' Archaeological Survey of India,' vol. i. p. 160. 

 II Hunter's • Orissa,' vol. i. p. 298. 



