"If chariots armed with scythes and spears, broadswords, iron rings, and iron money, indicate a knowledge of the art before the Roman conquest, an improvement in the method of smelting and working the metal was certainly communicated by the invaders.
"A fabrica, or great military forge, was erected at Bath, near the well-wooded hills of Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire, A. D. 120.; and the bed of iron cinders in the forest of Dean, in the vicinity of Sheffield, and other parts of the island in which Roman coins were imbedded, gave evidence of their early activity in the iron manufacture.
"The earliest of these masses of scorice were found on the hill-tops, where the earliest furnaces were erected, to obtain stronger currents of air, which were admitted through holes on all sides. The rudeness of these wind-furnaces was indicated by the half exhausted state of the slag.
"After the invention of the bellows, at first operated by the hand or foot, and in pro cess of time by water-power, the furnaces were built in the valleys; and the slag of the ancient bloomeries long furnished a supply of material for the best iron."* There are notices in Homer and Hesiod of the art of reducing z°oV,Kioroc,t or malleable iron, from the ores in the furnace ; but it is probable that the Greeks obtained most of their iron through the Phoenicians from the Black Sea and Laconia. It has been found in the pyramids or tombs of Egypt, and obtained by Mr. Bayard from the ruins of Nineveh. Indeed, the Assyrians seem to have been well acquainted with the manu facture and use of iron, since picks, hammers, knives, swords, and saws were found among the fallen palaces of Nimroud.
The furnaces used at this early day were undoubtedly much the same in form as that represented in figure 176; but the blast was probably natural, since the bellows do not appear to have been used, judging from the imperfectly-fused scoria; found in the waste heaps of the ancient furnaces. The Romans used those wind-furnaces or bloomeries in England as late as 120 A.D.; and Mungo Park saw one of those rude furnaces in blast during his travels in Africa.
From these resulted the blast-bloomery or oven of India, and the more recent Catalan forge still in use.
The early modes of manufacturing iron are still preserved in barbarous or half civilized countries; and, in fact, some of them are practised even among ourselves to-day. The Catalan forge or bloomery, as often used in the mountains of the South, is as primitive in style now as it was one thousand years ago ; and the clay ovens of the wootz manufacturers of India, built by the natives at the present day, is probably the very same in style as those which were used by them at the time of the invasion of Alexander; while it is a uniform process from the Himalaya Mountains to Cape Comorin.
"The furnace or bloomery in which the wootz ores are smelted is from four to five feet high; it is somewhat pear-shaped, being about two feet wide at the bottom and one foot at the top; it is built entirely of clay, so that a couple of men can finish its erection in a few hours, and have it ready for use the next day. There is an opening in front about a foot in height, which is built up with clay at the commencement and broken down at the end of each operation. The bellows are usually made of goat's skin, which has been stripped from the animal without ripping open the part covering the belly. The apertures at the legs are tied up, and a nozzle of bamboo is fastened in the opening formed by the neck. The orifice of the tail is enlarged and distended by two slips of bamboo. These are grasped in the hand, and kept close together in making the stroke for the blast; in the returning stroke they are opened to admit the air. By working a bellows of this kind with each hand; making alternate strokes, a pretty uniform blast is produced. The nozzles of the bellows are inserted in tubes of clay, which pass into the bottom-corners of the temporary wall in front. The furnace is filled with charcoal, and a lighted coal being introduced before the nozzles, the mass in the interior is soon kindled.
"As soon as this is accomplished, a small portion of the ore, previously moistened with water, to prevent it from running through the charcoal, but without any flux whatever, is laid on the top of the coal, and covered with charcoal to fill up the furnace.