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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
ore.
and elsewhere. Nothing can be more simple and primitive than the native process, which, albeit involving a recondite chemical application, is probably the same now as in the days of Alexander the Great. The ore used is the magnetic oxide of iron, which, though sometimes forming small hills, is generally dug out from various depths. Occasionally it forms regular octahedrons yielding 72 per cent. of iron. The furnace is formed of clay, four or five feet high, cone-shaped, with a hearth at the bottom, round, and about twenty inches in diameter, the mouth at the top half that breadth. A pipe is inserted at the bottom of the cone, the outer end of which is connected with a pair of bottleshaped skin-bellows. A layer of charcoal is placed at the bottom of the furnace and lit, on that a layer of ore, and this is repeated till there are seven layers of charcoal and as many of Two men then work the bellows for two hours, when all the ore fuses, and the metal runs together in a mass. It costs less than a rupee to construct a furnace, and about thirty rupees' worth of iron can be made in it in a year. But a further process is necessary to convert the iron into the famous steel, and that process hardly yet seems thoroughly understood; its success probably depends upon a manual instinctive dexterity handed down from generations. The iron cake is again fused, and some uncharred wood and green leaves of the Asclepias gigantea are enclosed with it in the crucible. The fusing takes twenty-four hours, and on breaking the crucible the steel is found in a sort of button, the surface radiated as though crystallized. It has increased in weight, is extremely hard, of compact texture, and brilliant white colour at the fracture, and requires to be annealed three or four times, and exposed to a red heat for twelve or sixteen hours.
This is the far-famed 'wootz,' or Indian steel, whence were forged those Damascus blades that would shear asunder fine muslin webs floating in the air, and sever sheets of paper drifted against them on running water. The success of
[AUGUST, 1878.
the forging is said to depend on the due application and proportion of the Asclepias leaves. This plant grows, dock-like, in profusion over the plains and waste ground of the dry central districts of Madras. In Malabar and on the rainy western coast it is hardly ever seen, and there, though the laterite soil is richly charged with iron and extensively smelted, the Malabar smiths cannot produce the steel,-they lack the secret of the mysterious leaf. The Asclepias plant throughout its stem and broad bluegreen leaves is filled with a milky juice, and its effect on metal depends on a recondite chemical cause, very far from obvious; and it is difficult to imagine how it could have been discovered in an unscientific age and country: its use and application were probably hit upon by accident, like the making of glass and the Tyrian dye.
But the Indian steel has one defect which goes far to explain the rarity of its appearance, and the profusion of European steel, in great armouries of old date, like that in the Tanjor palace, and that, defect is its exceeding brittleness. Worked up in the European style it would break like glass. Hence, doubtless, the preference shown for the tougher and more enduring European blades. Moreover, the ancient Indian smiths seem to have had a difficulty in hitting on a medium between this highly refined brittle steel and a too-soft metal. In ancient
HIWAN THSANG'S ACCOUNT OF HARSHAVARDHANA.
The reigning king is of the Fei-she (Vaisya) caste; is surnamed Ho-li-sha-fa-t'an-na (Harsha
sculptures, as at Srirangam, near Trichinapalli, life-sized figures of armed men are often represented bearing kuttars or long daggers of a peculiar shape; the handles, not so broad as in later kuttars, are covered with a long narrow guard, and the blades, 24 inches broad at bottom, taper very gradually to a point through a length of 18 inches, more than three-fourths of which is deeply channelled on both sides with six converging grooves. There were many of these in the Tanjor armoury, perfectly corresponding with those sculptured in the old temples, and all were so soft as to be easily bent,-recalling the fault noted by Tacitus and Caesar in the weapons of the ancient Gauls and Germans.
MISCELLANEA.
vardhana); he rules over and holds the whole country. They reckon three kings in two generations. His father's surname was Po-lo-kie-lo-fa-t'an-na (Prabhakaravar
* In Chinese Hi-tseng, 'increaser of joy. See note 9 below.
