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XXXIIL — An Account of the Iron Mines of Caradogh, near Tahreez in Persia, and 

 of the Method there 'practised of 'producing Malleable-Iron hy a single process 

 directly from the Ore. By James Robertson, Ci'cil and Mining Engineer, 

 Major Persiaifi Service, and late Director of the Shah's Ordnance IForks, 

 Persia; Cor. M. W.S., and Cor. F.A.SS. 



(Read 2d March 1840.) 



The ancient Greeks have laid claim to the earliest discovery of the method 

 of manufacturing iron, but it will appear that the art was known in Persia at 

 least as early as among the Greeks. The method of producing malleable-iron by 

 a single process directly from the ore, is not indeed quite unknown at the present 

 day, but it is believed to be altogether disused in Great Britain and throughout 

 Europe ; but there is no doubt that, in Britain, particularly at Castle Cough, 

 Glamorganshire, and at Furness, near Ulverston, in Lancashire, as well as else- 

 where, malleable-iron must have been known long before the discovery of cast- 

 iron. In the 17th century, malleable-iron appears to have been made directly 

 from the ore, in preference to the method now practised. In the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions (for 1693, vol. xvii. p. 695), there is the following short notice 

 by Mr Sturdy, of the method as then practised at Milthorpe-forge in Lancashire. 

 " The forge is like a common blacksmith's, with a hearth made of sow-iron, in 

 which they make a charcoal fire, and put in ore, first broken into pieces like a 

 pigeon's egg ; it is melted by the blast, leaving the iron in a lump, which is never 

 in a perfect fusion ; this is taken out and beaten under great hammers, played 

 with water, and, after several heatings in the same furnace, it is brought into 

 Ijars. They get about one hundredweight of metal at one melting, being the pro- 

 duce of about three times as much ore ; no limestone or any other flux is used." 

 It has been doubted by an intelligent author (Farey on the Steam-Engine, p. 271), 

 whether, by the process here described, the iron was really made directly from 

 the ore, or only from pig metal. The existence, however, of a similar process at 

 the present day in Persia, evidently the same which has been practised in that 

 country from a very remote period, will make it appear not the least improbable 

 that iron may have been thus produced from the rich hematite or fibrous red 

 iron-ore of Lancashire. 



The writer of this paper having resided for more than two years in the 



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