388 Manufacture of Bar Iron in Southern India. 



of much importance, both to individuals and to the Govern- 

 ment, to be acquainted with the mode of supplying any 

 extraordinary demand. Indeed, we are informed by Captain 

 Drummond, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 

 that the carriage of a suspension bridge erected in Kemaon, 

 alone cost about 80 rupees per ton, or as much as the iron 

 might have been made for upon the spot. 



4. In projecting the establishment of a new manufacture, 

 persons are but too prone to copy an old established process, 

 without studying sufficiently the principles by which the re- 

 sult is produced, so as to be able to modify the mode of opera- 

 tion to suit the resources of the locality, and the capabilities 

 of the workmen; and because the English mode of manufac- 

 turing iron has been found to be the most profitable in 

 England, it has been supposed that a similar process could 

 alone answer in India. This process has also been styled 

 " scientific," but the fact is, that the principles of the mode 

 of operation are still totally unknown, and the manufactures 

 are not only unable to produce at pleasure a certain result, 

 but even the quantities of the results produced depend 

 upon the weather, and other causes as yet not explained, or 

 beyond the control of the workmen. We do not as yet 

 even know what cast iron is; nor with any certainty what 

 its component parts are; nor in what it differs from steel, 

 or the varieties of what are generally called carburets of 

 iron. On this point Barlow remarks, (Encyclopedia Metro- 

 politana,) " There is certainly much to be learned in the iron 

 trade, before we can boast of any thing like a complete 

 knowledge of its different processes. We observe many 

 facts in this, as well as in other branches of the manufacture, 

 of which, the most we can say is, that they are connected 

 with, or caused by certain other accompanying facts, though 

 we are ignorant how this connection exists ; often, indeed, 

 our knowledge does not extend so far." Again, "it is, 

 however, so difficult to follow up chemical analysis, and to ob- 



