520 NATURE [JANUARY 7, 1915
action is perhaps the most interesting. It is worth attained by the workers in the metal. These gigantic
while to direct attention to a sentence in the preface forgings were constructed by welding together small
by Mr. George Otis Smith:-" It should be em- blooms of iron, a method which continued to be
phasised that the results thus far obtained afford no practised in China and Japan until the middle of last
adequate basis for any method of electric prospecting century. The Delhi pillar has not rusted to a
nor any promise of the development of such a method marked degree, and this resistance to corrosion is
by connecting the presence of ore deposits with readily ascribed by the author to the composition of the
or definitely measurable electric activity." Although iron, which is free from manganese and sulphur, and
no very definite results are recorded in this bulletin, contains a tolerably high percentage of phosphorus.
it contains much suggestive material, and will probably The paper also includes an interesting account of
lead to a fuller investigation of the subject. the method of making wootz or Indian steel as prac-
We have also received a series of pamphlets dealing tised in India long prior to the manufacture of crucible
.11ith the mineral production of the United States for steel in Europe.
1913. In order to enable this information to be issued
with the least possible delay, each chapter is issued
separately as soon as the necessary statistics shall have AN ALL-METAL DIVING DRESS.
been prepared, instead of waiting as heretofore until
the whole of the statistical information needed for the
entire volume was available. This system not only
T HE Engineer for December II contains an account
of an all-metal diving dress invented in the
United States of America by Mr. Chester E. Macduffee.
enables the various chapters to be issued more promptly This dress is the result of about five years' experiment,
but enables a producer to whom the statistics of one and is now claimed to have reached a practical stage.
or of a limited number of substances alone are of
importance to concentrate his attention on these and to
find what he needs in a handy little pamphlet instead
of having to deal with a bulky volume. The chapters
hitherto published are-
Part i., "Metals" :-(1) Bauxite and aluminium;
(2) chromic iron ore; (3) gold, silver, copper, and lead .·
in South Dakota and Wyoming; (4) manganese and
manganiferous ores; (5) recovery of secondary metals.
Part ii., "Non-Metals" :-(1) Mica; (2) fuel briquet-
ting; (3) sand-lime brick; (4) sulphur, pyrite, and
sulphuric acid; (5) mineral paints; (6) slate; (7) potash
salts; (8) fuller's earth; (9) cement industry; (10)
feldspar; ( 1 r) talc and soapstone; ( 12) barytes ; ( 13)
silica; ( 15) abrasive materials; ( 16) phosphate rock;
( 19) sand and gravel.
It need scarcely be said that the high standard of
accuracy, and abundance of detail, that we are accus-
tomed to find in the statistical publications of the
United States Geological Survey have been fully main-
tained.
IRON IN ANCIENT INDIA.
B ULLETIN No 12 of the Indian Association for the
Cultivation of Science contains an interesting
article on iron in ancient India, by Mr. Panchanan
Neogi, professor of chemistry in the Rajshahi College,
Bengal. The author discusses the quPstion whether
iron was known in the Vedic age, and advances
evidence, chiefly based on the Rigveda, in favour of the
view that iron was known and used between 2000 and
rooo B.C. Whether absolute reliance can be placed
on this evidence, especially as to the dates, may
be open to question, but the find of ancient iron
weapons on a burial site in Tinnevelly proves that iron
was undoubtedly known in India in very early times ;
while the piece of iron slag unearthed at Bodh-Gayo
shows that iron smelting had been carried on in
the third century B.c., and the iron clamps founcl in
a temple on that site, to which the date 400 lo
6oo A. D. has been assigned, bear evidence to a con-
siderable advance that had then been made in the
working of ;he metal. As regards the metallurgy
of the metal, wrought iron was produced, as in all Macduffee Diving Dress. Diver coming up after submergence.
countries in early times, by the direct process from I! rom the Engineer.
ores by smelting them in small blast furnaces without
the intermediate production of cast-iron. The well- Divers have used this armour at a maximum depth
known iron pillar near the Kutub Minar, Delhi, and of 212 ft., and could have gone deeper had more water
the rectangular iron beams of the temple at Puri, been available. The dress is made of an aluminium
to which the dates 640 A.D.-u74 A.D. have been alloy of great strength, and weighs empty about
ascribed, are cited as examples of the scale on which 480 lb. ; its very considerable displacement gives it a
iron forgings were made and of the remarkable skill good deal of buoyancy when in the water, and necessi-
NO. 2358, VOL. 94]
© 1915 Nature Publishing Group
