Undivided India First Suspension Iron Bridge

A Captain Presgrave who used iron from the smelting center of Tendukhera in Central India for the construction of a suspension bridge over the Bias River in 1830, wrote that it “of most excellent quality, possessing all the desirable properties of malleability, ductility at different temperatures and of tenacity for all of which I think it can not be surpassed by the best Swedish iron.” And an East India Company official in Central India wrote: “In the different forts and ghurries which have fallen into our hands in these territories were found many iron guns, the metal of which is stated to be very fine.”4 Franklin also
declared that the iron would yield excellent steel. He further added: “The employment of so simple a forge in England would be absurd—but considering it an instrument adapted to the existing condition of the country where it is used—it assumes a different character—for such is the cheapness of labour and fuel that I question whether any other furnace would compete with it.”

Refrence:
Rambel Recollection

IRON SMELTING IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT C.1800
Prasannan Parthasarathi
Boston College, USA
June 2008

Board’s Collections, F/4/1210, Letter from Maddock, Agent to Governor-General in Saugur and
Nerbudda Territories, to Secretary Prinsep, Bengal, 20 March 1827, p. 1698-9, OIOC.