Image: Chinese Fining and Blast Furnace

Description: Chinese iron workers smelting iron ore to make pig iron and wrought iron in 16th century. The left half of the illustration shows a fining process, while the right half displays men operating a blast furnace. The fining process operates a reacting powder (the wuchaoni) and work on molted pig iron (see Don. Wagner analysis): this is a specific fining process, very different form later chinese puddling processes. This illustration is an original from the Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia printed in 1637, written by the Ming Dynasty encyclopedist Song Yingxing (1587-1666). Picture taken on the web from at: http://donwagner.dk/MingFe/MingFe.html The picture also appears in Figure 14-10 on page 250 of E-tu Zen Sun and Shiou-Chuan Sun's translation of the Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1966).
Title: Chinese Fining and Blast Furnace
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
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