Moreover, this same carburizing action of the fuel would at times go so far as to turn part of the metal into a true cast iron, so brittle that it could not be worked at all.
With the second period began, in the 14th century, the gradual displacement of the direct extraction of wrought iron from the ore by the intentional and regular use of this indirect method of first carburizing the metal and thus turning it into cast iron, and then converting it into wrought iron by remelting it in the forge.
This carburizing is an indispensable part of the process, because through it alone can the iron be made fusible enough to melt at the temperature which can be generated in the furnace, and only when liquid can it be separated readily and completely from the slag.
The fuel has, in addition to its duties of deoxidizing and carburizing the iron and yielding the heat needed for melting both the iron and slag, the further task of desulphurizing the iron, probably by the reaction FeS+CaO+C=Fe+CaS+CO.
As desulphurizing seems to need the direct and energetic action of carbon on the molten iron itself, and as molten iron absorbs carbon most greedily, it is hard to see how the blast-furnace is to desulphurize without carburizing almost to saturation, i.e.