Iron in Ancient India c8.s1.23

c8.s1.23

It will be seen that the iron produced in the first place by the Indian method is always wrought iron and not cast-iron which is produced as the first product in modern blast furnaces. The reason is not far to seek. It will appear from the accounts of manufacture given above that the temperature in the furnaces is only sufficient to soften the iron so that small particles might agglutinate to each other but not sufficient to melt it, while the temperature at the hottest zone of a modern blast furnace is 1400° or more. The result is that in a modern blast furnace the iron begins to take up carbon at 1000° and becomes saturated with the latter as it descends to the zone in which the temperature is 1400°, thus becoming converted into cast iron. It must however be admitted that at the lower temperature of the Indian furnaces a large portion of the iron ores escapes reduction to metallic iron.