Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c23.s5.t1.4

c23.s5.t1.4

*Kala* (No.5) or black ore, is the compact earthy brown oxide, always dark coloured, generally approaching to black, sometimes but very rarely metallic (No.6) and crystallised (No.7), its streak is brown, and it is a very good kind of ore; *Devi Sahi* (No.8) or variegated, is the concentric lamellar variety (No.10 and 11) streaked with the yellow oxide; it has a fibrous tendency though opaque, but sometimes it is metallic as *Hemate* (No.9), and in this case its fibres are extremely fine, and of a silky lustre, its streak is yellowish brown and it is reckoned the best kind of ore, producing most abundantly, good malleable iron, and also tolerably good steel.