other is brittle, and this is the
worst. Sometimes the iron, by reason of the excellency of the ore, is
wrought into steel, as to-day in Noricum. From the finest iron, too, well
wrought and purged from all dross, or by being plunged in water after
heating, there issues what the Greeks call [Greek: stomoma]; the Latins
_acies;_ others _aciarium,_ such as was at times called Syrian, Parthian,
Noric, Comese, Spanish; elsewhere it is named from the water in which it is
so often plunged, as at Como in Italy[75], Bambola and Tarazona in Spain.
_Acies_ fetches a much larger price than mere iron. And owing to its
superiority it better accords with the loadstone, from which more powerful
quality it is often smelted, and it acquires the virtues from it more
quickly, retains them longer at their full, and in the best condition for
magnetical experiments. After iron has been smelted in the first furnaces,
it is afterward wrought by various arts in large worksteads or mills, the
metal acquiring consistency when hammered with ponderous blows, and
throwing off the dross. After the first smelting it is rather brittle and
by no means perfect. Wherefore with us (English) when the larger military
guns are cast, they purify the metal from dross more fully, so that they
may be stronger to withstand the force of the firing; and they do this by
making it pass again (in a fluid state) through a chink, by which process
it sheds its recremental matter. Smiths render iron sheets tougher with
certain liquids, and by blows of the hammer, and from them make shields and
breastplates that defy the blows of battle-axes. Iron becomes harder
through skill and proper tempering, but also by skill turns out in a softer
condition and as pliable as lead. It is made hard by the action of certain
waters into which while glowing it is plunged, as at Bambola and Tarazona
in Spain: It grows soft again, either by the effect of fire alone, when
without hammering and without water, it is left to cool by itself; or by
that of grease into which it is plunged; or {24} (that it may the better
serve for various trades) it is tempered variously by being skilfully
besmeared. Baptista Porta expounds this art in book 13 of his _Magia
Naturalis_. Thus this ferric and telluric nature is included and taken up
in various bodies of stones, ores, and earths; so too it differs in aspect,
in form, and in efficiency. Art smelts it by various processes, improves
it, and turns it, above al