Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.s2.19

c6.s2.19

Whatever may have been the understanding in the other European countries regarding the details of the processes employed in the manufacture of Indian steel, the British, at the time wootz was examined and analysed by them, concluded ‘that it is made directly from the ore; and consequently that it has never been in the state of wrought iron.38 Its qualities were thus ascribed to the quality of the ore from which it came and these qualities were considered to have little to do with the techniques and processes employed by the Indian manufacturers. In fact it was felt that the various cakes of *wootz* were of uneven texture and the cause of such imperfection and defects was thought to lie in the crudeness of the techniques employed.