The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-12-15
The Antiquity of Iron and Steel.
O. D. Hiscox, NJ. E, in scientific American.

\ a mythical bronze, the manufacture OF
which has been assumed as a lest art.
An alloy of the only metals known to
the ancients that produce hardness suit
able for cutting tools is as well known to-
day as in the early ages; but no such alloys
are suitable for cutting granite or senite,
although marble, slate, and sandstone
readily yield to their cutting pressure.
The finding almost exclusively of metal
lie tools and Instruments, relics of reput-
ed bronze age, does not conflict with the
probability of contemporaneous use Of. iron
and steel. for the resisting properties of
bronze to oxidation by exposure to the
damp atmosphere where such relics are
usually found is vastly greater than with
iron and steel; yet the few samples named
as iron (possibly steeD that have been
found in protected situations are facts Of
value.
The British Museum contains the Lay
ard collection found at Nineveh of Assy-
rian ar,nor plates, shields, battle axes, saws,
and other objects of iron or steel of date
probably / 900 or more years before the
Christian era; and as history goes. the
prints of various articles of oxidized iron
were there uncovered, to fall to pieces by
handling, that would have remained intact
if undisturbed for countless ages
If those cutting instruments had been
made f=steel. no trace of the fact would
be left in their oxidized remains. for the
steel constituting element would naturally
disappear in the oxidizing process.
The Chalybians, Scythian race, were
makers of steel 500 years B. c., and their
name was given to the finest steel by the
/ Greeks.
India has been celebrated from the earli-
est times for the quality of its steel; its
Wootz is referred to as of the highest
grade and to it, or the Chalybian steel.
may have been due the renown of the
Damascus blades.
! The iron column at Delhi. forging not
to be sneered at from the standpoint of our
largest modern forged shafts, was bloomed.
welded, and Clipped into a symmetrical
form with complex futed capital that
nothing but steel chisels and hammers
equal to our modern tools could have been
used to mould into such artistic form. 1t
is marvel of antiquity; 60 feet in height,
about 16 inches diameter at base, tapering
to - inches at the top, with an enlarged
capital with ornamental huting Its esti-
mated weight is II TONS 1t dates from
an age about 900 years before the Chris
| tian era. thus showing an advanced state
of the art of iron working almost prehis
toric; for work of that magnitude could
not possibly be produced at that age Of
human civilization and art without ages
of previous apprenticeship. 1t stands
alone above all other relics, a monument
commemorative of the state of the me-
chanic arts in prehistoric times, only paral-
leled by the discoverey of iron and steel
tools in the tumuli in India of supposed
date some / 800 years before the Christian
] era.
China also claims great antiquity in the
process of making iron and steel; the
Chinese record minutely describing the
processes is still preserved and is accredit-
ed as from very early age by archeolo-
gists.
The mariner compass dates back to
100 B. c. in Chinese history. We can
not conceive Of anything but hardened
steel suitable for the compass needle.
Coming back to the supposed centers of
ancient civilization, Tubal Cain was an
instructor of every artifcer in brass and
iron. which was also well known in the
times of Moses, 1000 years B. c.
The iron wedge found in the Great
Pyramid and the sword blade found by
Belzoni under the Sphinx at Karnak car
ries the date back 3, 500 years b. c., and
possibly to 4, 400 years, TO the times of
Menes.
Job mentions pen used to engrave up
on rocks and a bow of steel. while Homer
alludes to the tempering of steel by the
plunging of the kissing AK into cold water.
The reputed iron wedge found under
the obelisk now in Central Park was prob
ably semi-steel as it was found to con-
tain by analysis over half per cent. of car
hon and smaller portions of other constitu
ents as usually found in blister steel; which
indicates probability of practice in those
early times of conversion Of iron into steel
by cementation.
The inhabitants of Great Britain were
manufacturers of iron before the landing
of the Romans, who fostered the art there
and worked bloomeries and Catalan forges
before and during the first century.
1t has been suggested that corundum
set in bronze chisels was the material that
worked the chisled surface Of the huge
blocks of sienite and basalt of the Egyptian
temples and their intagliated inscriptions;
but when we consider its brittle nature
and how small blow will split and crush
the crystals, the suggestion becomes but an
/ idle thought
There is no doubt that iron and copper
saws and tubular drills were in use with
pulyerized eorundum or emery as an abrad-
Ing material for saving and drilling the
hardest granite. On this the evidence is
very conclusive from the observed saw and
drill marks and the simplicity of the opera
tion.
The use of laps for grinding and polish
ing tablets, cylinders, slgnets ana precious
stones. and the methods of engraving their
inscriptions by revolving tools charged with
coruindum or emery. is too well attested by
a close inspection of the numerous and
beautiful examples in our Metropolitan
Museum and in possession of collectors of
these most antique relies Of an almost pre-
historic civilization.
Emery and corundum were well known
to the ancieuts, being found in large quanti
ty in the islands of the Grecian Archipel-
ago, in the vicinity Of Smyrna and ancient
Ephesus in Asia Minor. The repute of
the lapidists of Magnesia Ephesus, Tralles
and Tyre were of note early, in the pre-
Christian age.
The commerce of Egypt extended over
all these regions and far tothe east, and it
is reasonable without doubt that not only
the art Of cutting. saving and drilling with