Copper in Ancient India c12.s2.19

c12.s2.19

The traditional Indian method of the extraction of copper is akin in principle to the modern blast furnace method of smelting copper first described by Agricola in the middle of the sixteenth century whilst writing about the working of the Mansfield copper works. The Mansfield process has been perfected by Herreshoff and others and the chemistry of the modern process is almost identical with that of the traditional Indian method. For the sake of comparison the principle of the modern method is being quoted below—"the roasted ore, mixed with coke or anthracite, and the slag from a later process, which consists chiefly of iron silicate with a little copper, is introduced at the top of the furnace, the air being forced through fuyeres. The products, which consist of 'matte' and slag accumulate in the bottom of the funace and then overflow continuously into the 'fore-hearth'. This matte is usually reduced to metallic copper in a 'converter', the resulting metal being refined in reverberatory furnaces."¹