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VIII. Experiments on Wootz. By Mr. David Mushet. Com- 
municated by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K. B. P. R. S. 
Read February 14, 1805. 
The following experiments were made at the request of Sir 
Joseph Banks, on five cakes of wootz, with which he supplied 
me for that purpose. As the cakes, which were numbered 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, were not all of the same quality, it will be proper 
first to describe the differences observable in their external 
form and appearance. 
No. 1 was a dense solid cake, without any flaw or fungous 
appearance upon the flat, or, what I suppose to be, the upper 
side. The round or under surface was covered with small pits 
or hollows, two of which were of considerable depth ; one 
through which the slit or cut had run, and another nearly as 
large towards the edge of the cake. These depressions, the 
effects, as I suppose, of a species of crystallization in cooling, 
were continued round the edges, and even approached a little 
way upon the upper surface of the wootz. 
The cake was a quarter of an inch thicker at one extremity 
of the diameter than at the other, from which I infer, that the pot 
or crucible, in which this cake had been made, had not occupied 
the furnace in a vertical position. Its convexity, compared to that 
of the other five, was second. Upon breaking the thin fin of steel, 
which connects the half cakes together, I found it to possess a 
very small dense white grain. This appearance never takes 
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