springs, for cutting tools generally. In these there may be little
actual difference of quality or manufacture. The tempering of steel
after it has been forged into shape is a specialty, almost a natural
gift. The manufacture of tool steel, is, as stated, one of the most
technical of the arts, and one of the most complicated of the
applications of long experience and experiment.

Cast steel was first made in 1770 by Huntsman, who for the first time
melted the "blistered" steel, which until that time had been the tool
steel of commerce, in a crucible. Since that time the process of melting
wrought iron has become practical and cheap, and results in
_crystalline_, instead of a laminated structure for all steels. The
definition of steel now is that it is _a compound of iron which has
been cast from a fluid state into a malleable mass._

The ordinary test applied to distinguish wrought iron from steel is to
ascertain whether the metal hardens with heating and suddenly cooling in
cold water, becoming again softened on reheating and cooling slowly. If
it does this it is steel of some quality, good or bad; if not, it is
iron.

* * * * *

The first mention of iron-ore in America is by Thomas Harriot, an
English writer of the time of Raleigh's first colonies. He wrote a
history of the settlement on Roanoke Island, in which he says: "In two
places in the countrey specially, one about foure score and the other
six score miles from the port or place where wee dwelt, wee founde neere
the water side the ground to be rockie, which by the triall of a
minerall man, was found to hold iron richly. It is founde in manie