(_Fr. R. Baconis Opera Inedita_, 1859, pp. 382-383.) The
same passage, apparently, of Avicenna is quoted by Vincent of Beauvais,
but with considerable differences. (See _Speculum Naturale_, VII. ch. lii.
lx., and _Specul. Doctrinale_, XV. ch. lxiii.) The latter author writes
_Alidena_, and I have not been able to refer to Avicenna, so that I am
doubtful whether his _Andena_ is the same term with the _Andaine_ of
Pauthier and our _Ondanique_.

The popular view, at least in the Middle Ages, seems to have regarded
_Steel_ as a distinct natural species, the product of a necessarily
different _ore_, from iron; and some such view is, I suspect, still common
in the East. An old Indian officer told me of the reply of a native friend
to whom he had tried to explain the conversion of iron into steel--"What!
You would have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it will
come forth a horse." And Indian Steel again seems to have been regarded as
a distinct natural species from ordinary steel. It is in fact made by a
peculiar but simple process, by which the iron is converted _directly_
into cast-steel, without passing through any intermediate stage analogous
to that of _blister-steel_. When specimens were first examined in England,
chemists concluded that the steel was made direct from the _ore_. The
_Ondanique_ of Marco no doubt was a fine steel resembling the Indian
article. (_Mueller's Ctesias_, p. 80; _Curtius_, IX. 24; _Mueller's Geog.
Gr. Min._ I. 262; _Digest. Novum_, Lugd. 1551, Lib. XXXIX. Tit. 4;
_Salmas. Ex. Plinian._ II. 763; _Edrisi_, I. 65-66; _J. R. S. A._ A. 387
seqq.; _Hamasae Carmina_, I. 526; _Elliot_, II. 209, 394; _Reynolds's
Utbi_, p. 216.)

[Illustration: Texture, with Animals, etc., from a Cashmere Scarf in the
Indian Museum.

"De deverses maineres labores a bestes et ausiaus mout richement."]

NOTE 4.--Paulus Jovius in the 16th century says, I know not on what
authority, that Kerman was then celebrated for the fine temper of its
steel in scimitars and lance-points. These were eagerly bought at high
prices by the Turks, and their quality was such that one blow of a Kerman
sabre would cleave an European helmet without turning the edge. And I see
that the phrase, "Kermani blade" is used in poetry by Marco's contemporary
Amir Khusru of Delhi. (_P. Jov. Hist. of his own Time_, Bk. XIV.;
_Elliot_, III. 537.)

There is, or was in Pottinger's time, still a great manufacture of
_matchlocks_ at Kerman; b