and Observations on Wootz. 
345 
(§2, §3 ). The experiments (§3. g, h) confirm this con- 
clusion. The oxide is not perhaps equally diffused, hence the 
vvootz is not quite uniform in its texture and hardness, until 
it has been remelted (§ 3. i ). The brittleness of wootz when 
white hot (§ 3- g) is a property of cast steel ; and shows that 
it contains no veins or particles of wrought iron, and also 
that it has been melted. Common steel, which is all made by 
cementation, is very malleable, when white hot, only perhaps 
because it contains iron which has escaped combination with 
carbon. 
The proportion of oxygen in wootz must be very small, 
otherwise it would not possess so much strength, and break 
with so much difficulty (§2.), and much more oxide would 
have melted out (§3. h). This oozing out of matter is ana- 
logous to that which appears on refining raw iron. 
Although no account is given by Dr. Scott of the process 
for making wootz, we may without much risk conclude that 
it is made directly from the ore ; and consequently that it 
has never been in the state of wrought iron. For the cake is 
evidently a mass which has been fused (§ 2.), and the grain 
( § 2. ) of the fracture is what I have never seen in cement steel 
before it is hammered or melted. This opinion consists with 
the composition of wootz, for it is obvious, that a small portion 
of oxide of iron might escape metallization, and be melted 
with the rest of the matter. The cakes appear to have been 
cut almost quite through while white hot (§ 2.), at the 
place where wootz is manufactured ; and as it is not pro- 
bable that it is then plunged in cold water, the great hard- 
ness of the pieces imported, above that of our steel, must 
