Author: Wertime, Theodore A.
Title: The coming of the age of steel.
Description: Leiden: E.J. Brill,1961. Orig. cloth binding. Dustjacket. xvi,330 pp. Index. Mailorder only - Alleen verzending mogelijk. Book condition : very good. - From the publisher : This book is a study of the metamorphosis of the Age of Iron into the Age of Steel. It concerns itself with the emergence of ferrous metallurgy as an industrial science and of iron manufacturing as the highly productive industrial process it is today, both meeting in the fabulous product called steel The period under consideration embraces the five centuries from 1400 to 1900. Technologically, the period began with the appearance of the blast furnace and terminated with the perfection of the Kelly-Bessemer converter and the Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace. Geographically, it included the last wave of Asian technical incursions into Europe and the first of several modern waves of European technical movement into Asia. Ecologically, it witnessed the passage of iron manufacture from forested hilltops to rural river valleys, and from these in turn to the environs of those modern cities where coal and iron ore can be efficiently brought together. Militarily, the period encompassed the conclusive termination of the struggle of the iron family of metals to replace bronze in all major technological uses, and the culmination of the rise of steel to first rank in the uses of iron. Scientifically, the period witnessed the replacement of alchemy by new chemical and physical theories which in complex ways addressed themselves to the problems of tron and steel extraction and fabrication.

Keywords: , metallurgy