Iron in Ancient India c9.s3.5

c9.s3.5

The first to examine wootz chemically was Dr. Pearson, who in 1795 contributed a paper on the subject to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Part II). The difference between wrought iron and steel, as is well known, lies in the fact that steel contains more carbon than wrought iron while cast iron contains still more carbon than either wrought iron or steel. But owing to the imperfect methods of analysis prevalent at that time Dr. Pearson states the results of his analysis of the percentage of carbon in a curious fashion. He estimated "the quantity of carbon in the wootz and steel to be nearly equal; and that quantity to be about one-third of the hundredth part or 1/300 of the weight of these substances." He also estimated the specific gravity of wootz as follows:—