PLATE CXXIV.
SPECIMENS
OF ENAMELLING FROM INDIAN ARMS.
The objects represented in the present Plate will serve to remind the reader of the beautiful andelaborate articles of a similar description comprised in the Indian department of the Great Exhibition . Ina future article we intend to offer some remarks on the general design and decoration of such objects ; andwe may therefore, on the present occasion, limit our observations to the admitted excellence of the steelproduced in India , and the mode in which it is prepared for conversion into sword-blades, spears, and otherweapons. In doing so, we shall avail ourselves of the lecture by Dr. Royle “ On the Arts and Manufacturesof India” (delivered at the Society of Arts , Feb. 18, 1852), which we have quoted in former pages; addingthereto some particulars collected from other authentic sources.
The learned doctor observes, that “ it is difficult to understand how a primitive people could have over-come the difficulty of smelting iron and of forging steel; yet the Hindoos have long done so. It is hardlyless wonderful,” he adds, “ to see a native of India , with no other tools than his hatchet and his hands,proceed to smelt iron, which he will convert into steel capable of competing wdth the best prepared in Europe .”In reference to the extreme antiquity of these arts in the East, Dr. Royle observes that iron is mentioned inthe earliest chapters of the Bible as being applied to purposes for which it must have been hardened.“ Northern iron ” is also spoken of in the sacred record; and Mr. Aikin * adduces reasons which render itprobable that this expression refers to the countries east of Babylonia . A passage in Ezekiel mentions“ bright iron, cassia, and calamus,” which are all Indian products, as having been brought to Tyre. “ TheHebrew name of steel, paldah, is evidently the same word as the Arabic, foulad, which is also in use in Persia ,where Indian steel is known by the name of foulad-i-hind. Even now the best Persian swords are madewith steel imported from India . Mr. Heath, at one time the managing director of the India Iron and Steel
Company, and whose steel obtained a prize at the Exhibition, believes that the tools which the Egyptians
used in engraving the hieroglyphics upon their obelisks and temples of porphyry and syenite were made ofIndian steel. There is no doubt that the carvings in the ancient temples and fortresses of India were executedwith steel instruments, as they are at the present day. That the Hindoos made steel which was highly valuedin the time of Alexander the Great is evident from Porus making him a present of about thirty pounds of
steel; and still earlier (about 1300 b.c.), in the Rig Veda , we read of chariots armed with iron weapons,
of coats of mail, of arms and tools of different kinds, and of bright-edged hatchets.” One of the traditionsas to the death of Cyrus I. (529 b.c.) was that it was caused by the javelin of an Indian when he wasmaking war upon that country.
The attention of scientific men in England was first publicly called to the peculiar properties andexcellence of Indian steel in the year 1795, when Dr. Scott, of Bombay, forwarded to the President of theRoyal Society some specimens of “ wootz,” as it is called in India , and which he described as “ a kind ofsteel in high estimation among the Hindoos,” at the same time requesting that some inquiries might beinstituted with a view to obtain further knowledge of its nature and qualities. Some elaborate analyses,tests, comparisons, and experiments were accordingly undertaken by Dr. George Pearson, F.R.S., and theresults were printed in the “ Philosophical Transactions ” (Vol. lxxxv. p. 322).
Probably the specimens