I have started reading "The Unorthodox Engineers", specifically "The Railways Up On Cannis". There are a few issues on this planet, including iron that will NOT harden, and volcanoes that pop up at short notice (if you watch the lichen you get 10 hours warning!). Anyway, here is a paragraph about the iron;
"The UE metallurgist was going quietly crazy trying to figure out why the Canian iron refused to harden. He finally decided it was due to the perverse allotropic form of the native carbon, and broke down an electrolytic refining cell of Terran origin to gain a less temperamental sample of the element. Two pounds of this steel prepared in the laboratory exhibited a cold-short brittleness of such a degree that it was rendered into iron filings by a few taps of a hammer. Increasing the silicon content and using Canian carbon he obtained a steel with the same tensile strength as lead. At this point he broke down and wept bitterly, then went out and joined in the construction work."
"The UE metallurgist was going quietly crazy trying to figure out why the Canian iron refused to harden. He finally decided it was due to the perverse allotropic form of the native carbon, and broke down an electrolytic refining cell of Terran origin to gain a less temperamental sample of the element. Two pounds of this steel prepared in the laboratory exhibited a cold-short brittleness of such a degree that it was rendered into iron filings by a few taps of a hammer. Increasing the silicon content and using Canian carbon he obtained a steel with the same tensile strength as lead. At this point he broke down and wept bitterly, then went out and joined in the construction work."
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