The Pent Saow, also attributed to the days of the Mings, speaks of three kinds of steel used for knives and Swords, a division which again reminds us of Daimachus. The first is made by adding unwrought to wrought iron, while the mass is subjected to the action of fire. The second is simply the result of repeated firings as practised in Africa. The third is native steel produced in the south-west at Hai-shan: ‘In appearance it resembles the stone called “Tsze-shih-ying” (purple stone efflorescence).’ It is understood that the process of manufacture is kept secret. The ‘Hankow-steel,’ which comes to Tien-tsin from the upper Yang-tse, is most prized; and commands much higher prices than the best imported English and Swedish; the Chinese, like the ‘Caffirs,’ look upon these as ‘rotten iron.’ China also had her ‘literary blacksmith,’ like Wieland Smith, the northern Dædalus. We read that Hoang-ta-tie of T’ancheu, who lived under the Sung, followed the craft of an ironsmith. Whenever he was at his work he used to call without intermission on the name of Amita Buddha. One day he handed to his neighbours the following verses of his own composing to be spread about:— Ding-dong! the hammer-strokes fall long and fast, Until the iron turns to steel at last! Now shall the long long Day of Rest begin, The Land of Bliss Eternal calls me in. Thereupon he died. But his verses spread all over Honan, and many learned to call upon Buddha. The oldest Chinese iron-works were at Shansi and Chilili in the Ho districts, where there are inexhaustible deposits of ore and coal, and where the metal is worked to the present day. In 1875 Commissioner Li-hung-Chang, raised from the Government-General of Chilili to be Minister of the young King, sent Mr. James Henderson to England with orders to bring out the most modern appliances and apparatus for metal-working. It was proposed to build the new works at Tsze-Chow, a town two hundred miles south-west of Tien-tsin, the head-quarters of the Governor-General. Mr. Henderson had visited (1874) the establishment near Yang-Ching, Shansi, which had before been described by Baron von Richtofen and Dr. Williamson.[401] The iron ore bought at Ping-ding-Chow was found at the Royal School of Mines, London, to contain fifty per cent. of iron, loose hæmatite with little or no sulphur.