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This is a suggested quenching method from the 12 th century....."Another temper is given to steel instruments with which one cuts glass and soft stone in the following manner.Take a billy goat three years old and tie him in a stable for three days without giving him food; on the fourth give him ferns to eat and nothing else. When he shall have nourished himself for two days , the following night shut him up in a barrel in the bottom of which there are holes, under which place another recipient, intact, which will receive his urine. After having thus caught enough during two or three nights, let the goat go, and temper your tools in the urine. The urine of a small red headed child also gives a temper harder than pure water." Diversarum Artium Schedula by Theophilus