On Dec 20, 4:25 pm, Front Office wrote:
> James wrote:
> > See what happens when Jean/Sue lets their guard down for even a second.
>
> > "jcon" wrote in message
> >news:1b4fa549-a112-4d58-b8f5-d818d0dcd851@p1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> >> On Dec 20, 12:34 pm, Front Office wrote:
> >>> Ken Dixon wrote:
> >>>> Yep, like Rosie O said, "first time in history steel was melted by
> >>>> fire". Idiot.http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
> >>> When were iron and steel first melted?
>
> >>> I would guess it happened in the latter 19th century.
>
> >> Huh?!? Iron has been smelted since at least 1500 BC, with the
> >> first steel appearing not much later. By about 2000 years ago,
> >> they were making high quality steel.
>
> Smelted, yes. Melted, I don't think so.
> It was all wrought, the steel at least was.
>
Ancient "bloomeries" could easily reach the melting
point of iron, but were intentionally kept lower to avoid
melting the ore, since there was no practical way to
to cast the iron.
Don't underestimate ancient technology.
-jc
> I had forgot about cast iron, for which the
> Wikipedia cites early 18th century dates.
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron)
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