418 Process of working the Damascus Blade of Goojrat. [May, 



comes from the south, .and can be purchased at Delhi, in large as well 

 as in small cakes. In India, if the same question is asked, the natives 

 reply, that it comes from the north. It is, probably, therefore, brought 

 up the Indus and Sutlej from the Persian Gulf. 



The accompanying figures 1 and 2 (PI. XI.) represent the plan and 

 profile of a mass lying upon the table before me. Now, upon considering 

 the internal structure of this, we are aware that it is a bundle of con- 

 centric needles crystallized around a porous centre, the vesicles of which 

 are coarse and apparent, formed by the splash of the metal as it fell 

 fluid into the mould. These I have rudely represented in dots in 

 figure 12. It is also manifest that the most solid portions of the mass 

 are the lower or convex surface. And, accordingly, in beating it out 

 into a bar, great care is taken to preserve each surface distinct from the 

 other, in order that the edges of the lenticular mass may become the 

 sides or flat surfaces of the blade ; that the convex surface may become 

 the edge ; and the flat, porous surface, the back. Under any other dis- 

 position, the damask figures would be confused and unseemly — and, as 

 cast steel cannot be welded, by any art known in Asia, the porosity of 

 the centre of crystallization in the mass, would either offer a jagged, 

 flawed edge, or one of the sides must be disfigured and weakened by 

 it. And thus the arrangement pursued in the fabric of the simple 

 damask blade is suggested by sound sense. The elegance and symme- 

 try arising from the arrangement is the accidental but necessary con- 

 sequence. 



The mass of cast steel being brought to red heat and held, as 

 represented in figure 3, edgewise upon the anvil, is beaten into a square 

 prism or bar — an operation of about two hours duration. "When the 

 requisite length is attained, the bar is flattened under the hammer, 

 those sides in the bar, which had been the edges, being placed, the one 

 above the other below, so as to become the flat surfaces of the blade. 

 The blade being shaped with the hammer and file and roughly bur- 

 nished, is brought to a dull red heat in a long charcoal fire, — a long 

 vessel of common oil is placed within reach, and the blade is plunged 

 by successive drawing cuts edge-foremost, into the oil ; so that the 

 edge becomes the most highly tempered part, and the back remains the 

 softest. The excessive temper is abated in the usual manner by laying 

 the blade over a slow charcoal fire. It is then burnished, and ground, 



