Cast Steel . 
443 
P , S. Why is the appearance produced on Damascus 
steel b v the application of an acid called the water ? Is it 
not different degrees of oxidation and what is the acid 
best fitted to produce this appearance. I had a paper 
given me some ten years ago on this subject, by a gen- 
tleman whose name I do not know. Unfortunately I have 
mislaid it. 
In addition to what you have published on the subject 
in your valuable Journal, pray furnish us with any other 
facts that may have come to your knowledge since that 
period. The subject appears to me to be worthy of phi- 
losophical research, and perhaps of national encourage- 
ment. 
Wielding of Cast- Steel By Sir Thomas Fran in- 
land, Bart . 
The uniting of steel to iron by welding is a well known 
practice ; in some cases for the purpose of saving steel ; 
in others, to render work less liable to break, by giving 
the steel a back or support of a tougher material. 
Ever since the invention of cast- steel (or bar steel refin- 
ed by fusion) it has generally been supposed impossible 
to weld it either to common steel or iron ; and naturally— 
for the description in Watson’s Chemical Essays (vol. iv. p. 
148) is just, that in a welding heat it u runs away under the 
hammer like sand.” How far the Sheffield artists, who 
stamp much low-priced work with the title of cast- 
steel, practise the welding it, I am ignorant ; but though 
I have enquired of many smiths and cutlers in different 
parts of the kingdom, I have not yet found the workman 
* I have always supposed steel to be less readily soluble than 
pure iron ; and that the carbon which is seen on the face of the 
former during the process of damasking, defends it from the acid,, 
while the fibres of iron are etched by corrosion so as to exhibit 
^he peculiar waving lines of this operation. N. 
