All That Glitters: Readings in Historical Metallurgy ed. by Michael L. Wayman

Abstract

436 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE All That Glitters: Readings in Historical Metallurgy. Edited by Michael L. Wayman. Montreal: Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (1 Place Alexis Nihon, 1210—3400 de Maisonneuve Boulevard West, H3Z 3B8), 1989. Pp. x+197; illustrations, references. $C50.00 + $C3.00 handling. Because scientists and technologists from Michael Faraday onward have from time to time interested themselves in the history of metallurgy, British and European metallurgical journals have had a tradition of publishing occasional papers on historical subjects. For example, important papers on topics such as African iron smelting, Roman ferrous metallurgy, and experimental bloomeries have ap­ peared in the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute. This tradition has been continued by the editors of the Bulletin of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, who have run “Historical Metallurgy Notes” as a regular feature. The historical papers published in the Bulletin since 1979 have been collected into a volume edited by Michael Wayman. They are organized into two sections, the first on the development of metallurgy in general and the second on Cana­ dian metallurgical history. The papers are typically four to six pages long and deal with specific materials, processes, or places. Some report results of new research in archaeological metallurgy, while others are reviews or accounts of local history. Most have references. The book lacks an index, but, since the papers are short, this is not a serious handicap. The papers reflect the interests of a wide range of authors and cover a diverse group of subjects. Those in the first part of the book range over topics that are not specifically Canadian. They include work on the early use of native copper, brass, and cast iron; early metallurgy in Japan and India; and the origins of some of 19thcentury process metallurgy, such as the electrolytic zinc process. Canada is a major primary producer of metals, and the metallur­ gical industries have been a relatively large component of the Cana­ dian economy. An excellent study of the technological history of the 19th-century extractive industries in Ontario has been written by Dianne Newell (Technology on the Frontier, Vancouver, 1986), but we lack other secondary sources on the history of Canadian metallurgy. The second part of All That Glitters helps fill a gap. The papers here cover aspects of both ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy in Canada starting with Les Forges du Saint-Maurice, established in 1729, and continuing into the middle of the 20th century. Some of the topics, such as the history of iron smelting in the Atlantic Provinces, are likely to be quite unfamiliar to readers in the United States. Through the coverage of the principal nonferrous industries, Canada is now better served than the United States, since no overall history of nonferrous metallurgy in the forty-eight states has been written yet. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 437 Anyone interested in historical metallurgy or the industrial history of North America will find this volume useful. One wishes that the professional mining and metallurgical societies in the United States took as much interest in and set as high a standard for historical works as do the Canadians. Robert B. Gordon Dr. Gordon is professor of geophysics and applied mechanics at Yale University. Daniel Hechstetter the Younger: Memorabilia and Letters 1600—1639— Copper Works and Life in Cumbria. Edited by George Hammersley. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1988. Pp. 395; maps, glossary, bibliogra­ phy, indexes. DM 142.00 (paper). For a large part of a lifetime, George Hammersley has been deeply immersed in the surviving records of the foreign metallurgical family primarily responsible for bringing copper mining and smelting to England in a period when that country was heavily indebted to Continental countries for technological innovations and improve­ ments. His background in the general history of the 16th and 17th centuries, his earlier researches on the iron industry, and his famil­ iarity with both English and German archival sources have equipped him well for the task. In Daniel Hechstetter the Younger, Hammersley edits three major documents, two from the Duke of Northumberland’s Alnwick ar­ chives and one from the Sloan MS in the British Library, which together constitute our main material...