So how exactly would I go about doing this? I know the soil on my land is particularly rich in iron (or at least something magnetic) as I can drag a strong magnet above the ground and have a lot of black specks clinging to it. Would it be reasonable to throw it in a furnace and get perfectly good molten iron (or steel) out the other end? Or would I need to chemically treat it in some way?
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The black mineral is probably mostly magnetite with is an oxide of iron with magnetic properties (duh!). Magnetite is the second most common form of iron ore (hematite is more common) so in theory you can create steel from it. All you need to do is build a blast furnace and add coal, lime etc.