Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c6.s2.27

c6.s2.27

The design, measurements, and construction of the furnaces and accessory implements, described in Chapter XV, require much detailed examination by experts. Similar examination is essential of the large amounts of data provided in Chapters XV and XVI. But a cursory study of the data seems to indicate that the proportion of iron recovered from the ore and the amount of charcoal required to produce a given quantity of crude iron in Central India is comparable with the respective ratios pertaining to the manufacture of iron and steel in Sweden, etc. It is possible that these quantities varied considerably in different parts of India. Maybe, with the continuous deterioration which had set in, the consumption of fuel in the production of iron increased considerably. It is perhaps due to this later development, or basing himself on the data from some selected areas, that Mahadeva Govind Ranade remarked (in the 1890s) that indigenous Indian ‘processes involve a great waste of power and resources, as much as fourteen tons of fuel being required to produce one ton of iron.’ And thus he concluded: ‘Besides the effects of foreign competitors, the collapse of the iron industry has been brought about by the increasing scarcity of fuel.’⁴⁴