Manufacture of Bar Iron in Southern India. 393 



The ore principally used is either the common magnetic 

 iron sand found in the nullahs, or else pounded magnetic 

 iron ore, separated from the ferruginous granite, (described 

 at page 165, vol. ii.,) but I have seen specular iron ore used 

 by the Konds of Goomsoor. 



14. The material used for the native furnaces, is the com- 

 mon red potter's clay of India, which unless carefully select- 

 ed, is not generally very refractory, and will hardly stand a 

 heat sufficient to fuse cast iron, but by mixing it with sand, 

 and by concentrating the heat in the centre of the furnace 

 as much as possible by a projecting blast pipe, the reduc- 

 tion of the ore is effected before the furnace has become 

 much more than red hot; the operation being completed 

 in about a couple of hours. 



15. In constructing these furnaces, a platform about two 

 feet square and five inches thick is first made, with a hole 

 in the centre nine inches in diameter. A half-cylinder or 

 curved piece is then formed also of the red clay, eighteen 

 inches high, four inches thick, and thirteen inches diameter 

 inside, and the same depth, and also a cone about two inch- 

 es thick of the same height, and the same diameter at bot- 

 tom, and seven inches at top. When these are quite dry, 

 a little wet clay being put round the hole in the platform, 

 the half-cylinder is placed upon it, and the open front is built 

 up with clods of clay, and the inside part is plastered for two 

 inches thick until a hollow cylinder is produced, about 

 twenty-three inches deep, nine inches in diameter inside, and 

 about six inches thick. When nearly dry, an arch is cut out 

 in front at bottom about nineteen inches high, to form the 

 door of the furnace. The cone is then placed on the top, 

 and the inside plastered with clay to correspond with the 

 bottom part, and the neck or throat reduced in the same 

 way to about five inches diameter. The upper part of a 

 chatty with the neck is then placed inverted on the apex 

 of the cone, to form a funnel to conduct the charge into 



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