In those countries where iron ores are found extremely rich and pure, and their reduction is effected by charcoal, excellent steel is produced from cast-iron, without an intermediate process; and this kind of steel has in consequence received the distinguishing name of Natural Steel. Formerly, this kind of steel was fabricated and chiefly used in this country, and it is still made in Styria and Catalonia, with great success. The French some time ago attempted the imitation, but notwithstanding some of their most scientific men were engaged in the undertaking, they failed in obtaining a natural steel equal to that which they imported from Germany. It had been previously asserted by Bergmann, that the natural steel of the Styrian and Nassau Liegen foundries, derived its excellence from containing a portion of manganese; and this opinion was subsequently corroborated by a writer in the Annales de Chimie, who had made some comparative analyses of the ores used in France and Germany. In support of his opinion, he mentions the fact that in the territories of Nassau Liegen, there are mines of manganese, and that the black oxide of that metal is employed as a flux in smelting iron intended for steel when their ores are found to be naturally deficient of that substance.

This writer states, that steel in general, but particularly natural steel, is essentially an alloy of iron and manganese, combined with carbon, and that this alloy is the natural steel of Germany, generally in these proportions: -

Hence he concludes that good natural steel ought to contain twice as much manganese as iron. Several years ago, the writer of this article (having a different object in view) mixed some black oxide of manganese with melted cast-iron, and the result was an exceedingly hard alloy, resembling steel. For obtaining natural steel, the ore is smelted, as for iron in blast furnaces; but the blast given is weaker, and is directed not upon the metal, but in a horizontal direction above it. The metal is kept covered with slag, and is not disturbed by stirring. When the iron is judged to be sufficiently refined, and has become nearly solid, it is taken out of the furnace and forged; after this, natural steel is withdrawn, there remains at the bottom of the furnace one or more pigs of cast-iron, rather hard, which are generally employed in fabricating implements of husbandry. The natural steel of Germany is extensively employed on the continent in the making of files, and various sorts of tools. The celebrated steel from Damascus, called damask steel, and that from Bombay, called Wootz, are both natural steels, being converted directly from the ore in crucibles.

These " fancy steels," however, we shall take some further notice of, after having explained the more important operations of our manufacturers.