61 
IRON AND STEEL. 
BY ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S. 
F ROM the buried palace of the kings of Assyria, Mr. Layard 
sent to England some good examples of art-manufacture 
in metal. With these we have at present no concern, except, for 
an important piece of information which one specimen conveyed 
to us. This specimen was a casting- in bronze of the fore leg 
and the foot of a young fawn, very delicately modelled. It 
evidently at one time formed a support to a table or lamp, or 
it may have been to some household god. This example of 
Assyrian metal-work was so slender, and yet so strong, that it 
was thought there must be shine peculiarity in the composition 
of the bronze, to enable it to support, without bending, the 
weight which probably rested upon it. A fragment was 
analyzed, and found to consist of copper 88'67 grains, and of 
tin 11-33 — about the usual composition of the ancient bronzes. 
In cutting off the fragment for analysis, a curious discovery was 
made : a rod of iron passed through the leg, as a core, around 
which the bronze had been cast. 
This proves not only that iron was known, but that it was 
commonly employed where strength was required, when the 
line of Belus tyrannized over all the land, from the mountains 
of Judah to those of Caucasus. It is not intended to discuss 
the question, whether the sacred historians, or the Greek poets, 
have described the metals which we now call Iron and Steel ; 
it is enough for us to know, that, at a very early period, there 
existed a knowledge of some of the best qualities of iron, and 
that it was an article of manufacture. The point to which we 
desire to call especial attention is, that man has certainly been 
using iron for nearly three thousand years, — that he is still 
ignorant of the causes producing many of its peculiarities, — and 
that our best chemists are at this moment disputing whether 
Carbon or Nitrogen is the element which converts iron into 
steel. 
England is peculiarly the land of iron manufactures. In no 
part of the world has iron ever been produced in such enormous 
quantities, and in such a variety of qualities, as in the United 
Kingdom. Our blast-furnaces are pouring out annually a 
molten stream of nearly four millions of tons of this metal, and 
our Mills and Forges are — like the caves of the Cyclops — for ever 
boiling and glowing — as this is being converted by the might of 
man’s industry into merchantable iron and steel. 
