11
opened to foreign trade, we saw therefore bar-iron become a regular article of import, which fact gave a heavy blow to the Japanese iron industry. For the last 15 years the Japanese have made little or no bar-iron (juku-tetsu), because they can buy it cheaper from European merchants, than make it themselves. Cast-iron and in some degree steel are still made in Japan, although the fabrication of steel has lost a great deal by the abolition of the old feudal system, which caused the downfall of the famous Japanese sword. The new weapons of the army are nearly all introduced from Europe. The Japanese believe, however, their steel to be of much better quality than that made in the west; the price of the first is more than the double of the latter.
After the ore has been selected it is piled up in heaps with coal and calcined (roasted) in order to expel the water, carbonic acid, sulphur, etc. This calcination makes the ore more porous and better fitted for the smelting process. This process is done near the places, (mountains) where the ore has been found.
The calcined ore is now smelted in a cylindrical furnace, built up with a few hard stones and fireproof clay. The clay is laid in layers till the wall of the furnace has sufficient thickness. The thick bottoms of this small furnace has a rounded shape, and a little above the bottom two exactly opposite openings in the wall are made for receiving the tubes of the bellows. Besides, there is a third opening near the bottom, which is closed with a clay-stopper and afterwards is opened to collect the fluid metal in the forms. Now the furnace, previously perfectly dried, is filled with a mixture of coarse powdered calcined ore, charcoal and some feldspar, clay or another quartz containing stone. These latter substances are added to act as a flux and to separate the metallic iron from the impurities which are taken by the slag. Sometimes, but not generally coal or coke is used as fuel. When the heat produced by the continuous strong stream of air, pressed into the furnace by means of large Chinese bellows, worked by four to five workmen, has been sufficient to smelt the ore,
