276 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
pared with the amount of labour expended in its production, the 
consequence being that, in spite of the suitability of this easily- 
worked metal for the purposes to which it is applied, the industry 
is being crushed out of existence by competition, and European-made 
iron, chiefly English and Swedish, is now exclusively used in many 
districts where there was a large indigenous production formerly. 
There is strong evidence in support of the view that the manufac- 
ture of iron was in a more advanced stage, and was conducted on 
a larger scale, at a very early period than it is now. This being 
granted, the furnaces of the present day should be regarded as de- 
graded survivals of more highly developed predecessors. Otherwise it 
would be difficult, nay, rather impossible, to account for the large 
bars of wrought iron to be found in ancient temples, and the enor- 
mous cannon, many feet long, which are to be seen in Assam and 
elsewhere. By far the largest example of metal work in India is 
afforded by the famous iron pillar at the Kutab near Delhi, which 
is 23 feet 8 inches high, including an ornamental capital ; the diame- 
ter at base is 16 feet 4 inches, and just below the capital 12°05 inches ; 
these dimensions indicate a weight of upwards of 6 tons. The metal 
is pure malleable iron without alloy, and from the inscription which 
it bears it is considered to be 1500 years old. The manipulation of 
such a mass might be accomplished without any excessive trouble in 
some of our modern first-class foundries; but the time is not yet 
remote when it could not have been accomplished in Europe. The 
suggestion that this pillar was made by successive weldings on to a 
heated end is not improbably correct, though traces of such weldings 
are not now visible on the surface. Be this as it may, this large mass 
of hammered iron might justly be accorded rank with the wonders of 
the world. 
But the above by no means conveys a complete idea of the extent 
to which iron manufacture has been carried in India. There are good 
grounds for believing that wootz, or cast steel, was exported from 
thence to the countries of the western world at least 2000 years ago. 
It is probably not generally known that the Damascus blades, so 
widely renowned for their strength, flexibility, and beauty, were 
made of cast steel, which was carried to Persia for the purpose 
from an obscure Indian village. 
Sixty or seventy years ago this Indian cast steel was in high 
demand at Sheffield, where it was used for the manufacture of surgi- 
cal instruments, a practical cutler of that time giving it as his verdict 
that, in spite of some drawbacks, it was the best material he had met 
with—this, be it remembered, was a period long before the manufac- 
ture of cast steel had become a successful industry in England. 
I shall only refer very briefly to the process by which the Indian 
cast steel was made. The iron used in its manufacture was either 
a particular variety of charcoal iron, or a mixture of two irons made 
from different ores. It was chopped into small fragments, and placed 
