BULLETIN 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 question 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 1000 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-Gaya shows that iron smelting had been carried on in the third century B.C., and the iron clamps found in a temple on that site, to which the date 400 to 600 A.D. has been assigned, bear evidence to a considerable advance that had then been made in the working of the metal. As regards the metallurgy of the metal, wrought iron was produced, as in all countries in early times, by the direct process from ores by smelting them in small blast furnaces without the intermediate production of cast-iron. The well-known iron pillar near the Kutub Minar, Delhi, and the rectangular iron beams of the temple at Puri, to which the dates 640 A.D.–1174 A.D. have been ascribed, are cited as examples of the scale on which iron forgings were made and of the remarkable skill attained by the workers in the metal. These gigantic forgings were constructed by welding together small blooms of iron, a method which continued to be practised in China and Japan until the middle of last century. The Delhi pillar has not rusted to a marked degree, and this resistance to corrosion is ascribed by the author to the composition of the iron, which is free from manganese and sulphur, and contains a tolerably high percentage of phosphorus. The paper also includes an interesting account of the method of making wootz or Indian steel as practised in India long prior to the manufacture of crucible steel in Europe.