167 



As Mandelslo tells us nothing about the use of steam, or any contri- 

 vance for heating the air used in the blowing, the Japanese process may- 

 be considered as having been a simple exaggeration of the process we 

 have ventured to indicate, as having been used by a central Asiatic 

 people who, at a very early period, reduced iron in crucibles — a plan which 

 is still used by those who in central Asia produce that kind of iron 

 which is so much prized in Damascus for gun-barrels, and other pur- 

 poses in which great toughness is desirable, and which iron is found 

 almost always mixed more or less with striae of steel. 



If it were found that the quahty of this iron, and that produced by 

 the Japanese process described by Mandelslo, were the same, and that 

 the central Asiatics at present blow the iron in the crucibles after it is 

 reduced from the ore, our supposition as to the origin of the curious 

 process described by Mandelslo might be considered established. 



Though found in use in Japan on the large scale, in 1639 (possibly 

 by Chinese traders or their agents there), it is extremely probable that 

 it is very much older in other parts of Asia ; and on the small scale, as 

 above suggested, perhaps it is as old as any other metallurgic process 

 now in use in Asia ; for iron tools and weapons have been found in the 

 very lowest strata of those numerous courses of clay, brickwork, and 

 pottery, which have been cut through in all the recent explorations 

 in the old sites of the cities, fortifications, temples, and palaces near 

 the Tigris and Euphrates. In every instance, as in the excavations 

 made by Captain Taylor,^ iron things are at the bottom, — indicating in 

 these regions, not a later but an earlier age, in certain parts of Asia, for 

 iron than for copper, silver, gold, and tin, and their compounds ; all of 

 which appear to have been later productions, and originally derived by 

 means of trade or war with other countries, where these metals were 

 themselves native. 



I have now to call attention to the second process noticed in the 

 title to this paper. , It is publicly practised in Dublin, by Mr. Buckley, 

 in James's -street, who claims to be manufacturer of the best horse-shoe 

 nails to Her Majesty. He informs me that he learned it from a man of 

 the name of Inman, who belonged to the York Militia, and who left 

 that regiment in Dublin above forty years ago,| when he secretly intro- 

 duced this method for making horse-shoe nails into this city. In principle 



* See his paper on Cromlechs found in the Deccan, read to the Academy, on the 12th 

 of May, 1862. 



f Before this time horse-shoe nails were made of the best Swedish iron generally ; but 

 whether the nailers blew them with the common bellows before, or annealed them after 

 fabrication, to soften them, I am not able to say. There were secrets known to certain 

 blacksmiths who made these nails; but whether the cold blast was nsed in Ireland before 

 Inman introduced it, I have not learned. A method for making horse-shoe nails, very 

 barbarous, as it is exactly the same with the Catfre method of forging iron weapons, had 

 been, before Inman's time, introduced into the county of Clare, from the county of Cork, 

 by a person of the name of John Hoare, as has been explained to me by Mr. E. Curry, 

 who describes Mr, Hoare to have been a great scholar and original genius. This process 

 consisted in using two stones, instead of the steel-faced hammer and anvil, for making horse- 

 shoe nails, it having been found that the stones abstracted less heat from the nail- rod 



