Iron in Ancient India c6.s8.30

c6.s8.30

(a) That in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries guns were manufactured in India by welding pieces or rings of wrought iron. The manufacture of a big iron gun, 21 feet long, by hammering and welding wrought iron, as described by Rennel, in such a manner that "its appearance was equal to that of the best executed piece of brass ordnance" unmistakably shows that Indians lost none of their old marvellous metallurgical skill which could produce at one time a Delhi or a Dhar pillar. This fact also shows that the production of wrought iron in India during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries still continued to be on a considerable scale.