Cast Steel. 
439 
It was then placed in a charcoal fire, and urged to a weld- 
ing heat by the double bellows. Thence it was taken 
with the tongs ; again hastily put into the cylinder, and 
hammered by means of the plug and the heavy hammer. 
When it was taken out, the whole was found to be 
consolidated ; but upon forging it into a plate, a consider- 
able portion flew off in a crumbly form. The plate, how- 
ever, was filed up, smoothed, and examined. 
Its colour presented nothing remarkable. When weak 
nitrous acid was poured upon it, it became mottled in 
consequence of the numerous small black spots which ap- 
p eared upon the particles of steel, while those of iron re- 
mained clean. On the nitrous acid being washed off, 
the surface appeared wavy like the Damascus steel, but 
scarcely at all fibrous ; doubtless because the solid had 
not been drawn out by forging. An attempt was made 
to harden it by ignition and cooling in water ; but it still 
remained soft enough to be cut with the graving tool, the 
point of which did not indicate any difference in that res- 
pect between the parts of iron and of steel, though it is 
very probable such a difference did really exist. 
I infer, therefore, that the Damascus steel is in fact a 
mechanical mixture of steel and iron ; that it is incapa- 
pable of any considerable degree of hardness, and con- 
sequently is in no danger of breaking from its brittle- 
ness ; that its tenacity is ensured not only from the ad- 
mixture of iron, but likewise from the facility with 
which its soundness may be ascertained throughout, by 
the same process which exhibits the water or fibrous ap- 
pearance : and, lastly, that the edge of a weapon formed 
of this material must be rough, on account of the differ- 
ent resistance which the two substances afford to the 
grindstone, in consequence of which it will operate as 
a saw, and more readily cut through yielding substances 
