Manufacture of Bar Iron in Southern India. 397 



produced. From my own experiments, I am led to believe, 

 that the Catalan forge will not answer except when the ores 

 of the peroxide are procurable, in consequence of a peculiar 

 property possessed by the magnetic oxide. But I am of 

 opinion that the German, " steuck often" might be used 

 with great advantage, and the complete reduction of the 

 ore at one operation to malleable iron, is easily effected. 

 One of these furnaces may be easily built for ten rupees. 

 The bellows for it may cost about ten rupees. A small tilt 

 hammer about fifty rupees, and the whole stock in trade 

 capable of turning out a ton of bar iron per week, need 

 hardly cost one hundred rupees. I believe that nearly all the 

 jungly tracts of Southern India are granitic, and in them of 

 course fire clay and magnetic iron sand abound. Charcoal 

 can be made at about fifty pounds for an anna, and the iron 

 sand is sold at thirty pounds for an anna, which prices are as 

 cheap as the iron stone and coal are now sold for in South 

 Wales. 



21. With regard to the quality of the iron produced by 

 the native methods, we have the most contradictory remarks 

 from various authors ; and indeed I am not aware of any 

 good researches upon this point having been published. 

 From what I have seen of Indian iron, I consider the worst 

 I have ever seen to be as good as the best English iron, 

 and that its supposed defects arise from its almost always 

 containing a considerable portion of steel. 



22. If it is attempted to bend a bar of English iron of 

 inferior quality when cold, it will be found to snap short off, 

 almost without bending at all, and the fractured end will 

 exhibit a series of minute glistening planes inclined at irre- 

 gular angles, and which by the lens, will be seen to resemble 

 exactly the spangles of " kisk," or graphite, which appear 

 upon the surface of highly carburetted cast iron. A bar of 

 the best English bar iron, when bent cold, will exhibit on 

 the sides of the bent angle a series of longitudinal fissures, 



