Steel of Mysore made at Mudgiri is the best.
That made of kanekal ore from the Dhore Gudda ilill in the Chikkanaikenhalli taltik, ia produced in a ruder manni..r, and is of an inferior quality. The kanekal is pounded to the size of small gravel and well cleaned. But the Mudgiri ore is reduced to an iron-sand by hard wooden mallets, and the earthy particles washed away, and is then filled into the small furnace with 15 times its bulk of charcoal, made of Ficu.s Indica, racemosa, and F. excelsa. The furnace is about 4 feet high, 21 feet at bottom, and about lt} feet at mouth, which is covered with an open earthen pot, pierced with boles at its bottom, like a colander ; ten seers of charcoal are placed at the bottom, then one seer of the iron - sand, over which again five more seers of charcoal are placed (the furnace having been previously warmed). The materials are then ignited, and the fire kept up from below without intermission for three hours, by two men blowing two common blacksmith's hand-bellows, during which thne the colander has been filled as the material sinks till seven more seers of iron-sand halve been added, with their due proportion of charcoal. The whole eight seers are then con sidered to be in a proper state to take out, which is done by opening the hole at the bottom, when the semi -molten iťass is withdrawn by large pinceis to an indentation in the neighbourino.
rock, where it is beaten with the same wooden mallets into as shapely a mass as time will admit of. This is reheated in a forgo and beaten into four rough bars, and again reheated and beaten into bars 7 to 11 inches long, and ii) this state they are fit for the crucibles, and called gat ti inurudu.' The furnace for converting them into steel is merely a hole in the ground, about two feet deep, lined with red clay, the greatest diameter being about two feet, and the least (which is about nine inches from the surface) about one foot, when it is gradually sloped out in the form of a skew-back to receive fourteen erucibles with their ends downwards, which are ranged round it in the form of a flat arch. Charcoal is put below aed above, and when ready for igniting, the charcoal appears about six inches or so above the ground, and is prevented front spreading by a low wall, in the rear of which the bellows are blown. The charcoal is renewed from time to time, so as to keep the crucibles in the midst of a carefully regulated heat, which is kept up by plying the bellows unremittingly for four hours, when the firing is complete.Major Cuth. Davidson, Assist ant Resident; M. C. C. for Ex. of 1851; Rohde, MSS ; Mad. Lit. Journ. ; 31. E. R.; Heyne.