392 Manufacture of Bar Iron in Southern India. 



large tilt hammer, then -cut into smaller pieces, and is drawn 

 out into bars at once. In this process the metal loses about 

 twenty-six per cent, of its weight, and 149 pounds of char- 

 coal are consumed for every 100 pounds of iron produced. 



11. Formerly a kind of furnace called in Germany a " steuck 

 often" was sometimes used, which was from ten to fifteen 

 feet high, and three feet in diameter, resembling very much 

 an iron founder's cupola furnace, but with a larger door, 

 which was broken open after the operation was finished, 

 which required about twelve hours, and the lump of cast iron 

 weighing about a ton, was removed with powerful tongs 

 to the refining furnace. The quantity of charcoal used was 

 from two and a quarter to three and a half cwt. for every cwt. 

 of cast iron, and about one and half cwt. more was required 

 in the refining and forging, making the whole expenditure 

 from four to five cwt. for every cwt. of bar iron. 



12. In some parts of France, malleable iron is made at 

 once from the mineral oxides of iron, in what are term- 

 ed " Catalan forges," which are cavities about 16 inches 

 square, and two feet in depth, sunk in the floor of the work- 

 shop, the blast being thrown in by a pipe sloping towards 

 the bottom of the furnace. The cavity being filled with 

 charcoal, the ore is added in small quantities, alternately 

 with fresh charges of charcoal, and in about five or six 

 hours a lump of iron is procured, weighing from two to four 

 cwt. which is removed, and forged at once into bars. The 

 expenditure of charcoal is very great, amounting sometimes 

 to eight times the weight of the iron procured. But when 

 wood is cheap and abundant, there can be little doubt this 

 process would be a convenient one for smelting any of the 

 mineral peroxides of iron. 



13. The mode of smelting iron used by the natives of 

 India, appear to be very much the same from the Himalayas 

 down to Cape Comorin, and in some degree resembles that 

 alluded to in paragraph 11. 



