The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-07
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

| imagination because the newness of Bir- mingham brought to my mind the thought of Damascus. the oldest city in the world.
 No one knows her birth, yet some have set it 1913 B. C., and yet few years back here in this twentieth century we were writing 1913 A D. No one knows her founders name, although many guesses have been made at it by historians.
 
 But with feet rooted in prehistoric times, she has survived the empires and kingdoms which conquered her, Nineveh. Babylon, Samaria, Greece, Egypt, their capitals are dust, but Damascus still blooms like tree planted by the rivers of water" the typical city, pure and sim pie, of the Orient.
 But there was something more than the mere contrast of age between Damas- icus, "the eye of the east" the gay, smil- ing, easy-going east of Scheherazade land Aladdin, and Birmingham, the Magic City of the west, for, strange as it may lseem, the oldest and newest are bound
 
 together because of the reputation of the steel produced within the borders of each Damascus at once suggested to me Da- mascus blades known round the world Trails made at Ensley credited with be- ing the best ever after long, scientific and practical tests. I have lived through the times when even our pig iron was traduced in the markets of the north, and the idea of it's ever being converted into steel was thought great joke.
 And so let no one think it's far-fetched to bring Damascus and Birmingham into the same story, for as the older city was long noted for it's works in steel. so is the younger one coming into it's own in the markets of the world as one of the great steel producing centers. It takes Inauguration, backed by determination. to put things over, and the story of the men Of faith and grit who stood by this district made The Romance of Steel" become lprosaic fact.
 It was no easy step from the first crude efforts to make steel here in a small way by experimental processes in the hands of daring men, but lacking in capital, to the mammoth plants which now loom up filling the valley to the west of us with the smoke from their great fur Inaces. It came by degrees, but now is more marvellous than any Arabian Night entertainment as the heavens at night are lit up by the fires of Vulcan.
 Damascus blades, though in use among nations little skilled in the metallur yie arts, long before the Christian era and mace familiar to the European nations rom the times of the crusaders. long de- ned all attempts at imitation One De- cuiiar1ty of the Damascene blade Is thar It presents upon it's surface variegated appearance of watering. as white silvery or black veins in fine lines or frets lhbrous, crossed interlaced or parallel. etc Not only the temper, but the damaskeen- ing. the art of ornamentation was the de- spair of the craftsmen of Europe for 1none seemed to be able to acquire the art lof inlaying. It has been learned that the Damascus appearance may be given to iron by welding together bars of different degrees of hardness, drawing them down. and repeating the process several times. In damaskeenng, a surface of iron. steel for bronze is first engraved with lines and lundercut, that is broader at the bottom than at the surface. The metal for the ornamental pattern is then usually inlaid in the form of narrow ribbon or strip. which is driven into it's place by blows of a mallet. The whole surface is then pol iished
 It appears that in ancient times the In-- dian wootz was carried from the region of Golconda in Hindustan (where. as wei as in Persia, it still continues to be man. ufactured by the original rude process), and at Damascus was converted into weapons. These were particularly noted for their keen edge, capable of severine heavy iron spears or of cutting the most delicate gossamer fabric floating in the lair. The mosaic process differed from the use of iron of different degrees in hardness by cutting the bar into short lengths and faggoting these pieces, the cut surfaces always being placed to face outward, but these were inferior to the others.
 It seems strange that the first success ful experiments were made in the middle lof the nineteenth century after the in- lvestigation of General Anossoff. These researches led to the establishment of works at zlatoosk in the Ural mountains, where the general manufactured Damas- GUS steel, according to his own invention eleven pounds of metal were melted in the crucible with one-twelfth as much graph ite and one-thirty- part of scale 4 iron. The process of bringing out the watered appearance was accomplished by the use of a diluted acid, which acts more upon the ground than upon the lines. All of General Anossoffs sword blades were tempered in boiling grease He was able to cut through floating gauge with his swords, and with them bones, and nails may be cleft without injury to the blades tempered for such use, and other steel tempered to the same point may be nicked by them without causing gap Their elasticity is so great that one may put his foot upon the end of the blade and bend it to right angle, when it will fly back perfectly unchanged. But with his death his successors have not been able to reproduce the excellence of those