Iron in Ancient India c6.s4.18

c6.s4.18

The opinion of two engineers is given below. One engineer says, "Nothing heretofore brought to light in the history of metallurgy seems more striking to the reason as well as the imagination, than this fact that from the remote time when Hengist was ruling Kent and Cedric landing to plunder our barbarous ancestors in Sussex down to that of our Third Henry, while all Europe was in the worst darkness and confusion of the Middle Ages—when the largest and best forging producible in Christendom was an axe or a sword blade—these ancient peoples in India possessed a great iron manufacture, whose products Europe even half a century ago could not have equalled." Another engineer's opinion will also be found to be interesting—"while considering forging of large masses of iron and steel, it is not easy to forget the impression caused by first seeing the iron pillar at Delhi. This column of wrought iron which is 16 inches in diameter, of which 22 feet are above the ground, and which is said to be 50 feet long and weighing about 18 tons, is finished perfectly round and smooth, with an ornamental top, and was made many centuries ago from iron produced direct from the ore and built up piece by piece. Remembering the lack of facilities men had in those days for first forging and then welding together such an enormous mass makes one wonder at the iron worker of those days, who must have possessed engineering ability claiming the admiration of our times. It is questionable whether the whole of the iron works of Europe and America could have produced a similar column of wrought iron so short a time ago as the exhibition of 1851."¹