Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c24.14

c24.14

12. In some parts of France, malleable iron is made at once from the mineral oxides of iron, in what are termed ‘catalan forges’, which are cavities about 16 inches square, and two feet in depth, sunk in the floor of the workshop, the blast being thrown in by a pipe sloping towards the bottom of the furnace. The cavity being filled with charcoal, the ore is added in small quantities, alternately with fresh charges of charcoal, and in about five or six hours a lump of iron is procured, weighing from two to four cwt. which is removed, and forged at once into bars. The expenditure of charcoal is very great, amounting sometimes to eight times the weight of the iron procured. But when wood is cheap and abundant, there can be little doubt this process would be a convenient one for smelting any of the mineral peroxides of iron.