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[0x517A5D]

Just so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle,

A recent thread hijacking gave me the impetus to research smelting of magnesium metal.  Here is a copy of my findings:

Magnesium metal is not found in nature.

We alrady have two types of stone (dolomite and olivine) that contain minable amounts of magnesium.

Like aluminum and sodium, magnesium metal is normally obtained using electrochemistry.  Anachronistic.

There is an alternative method, the Pidgeon process, that may be within the reach of dwarves.  The condensation technique for recovering the metal seems similar to that of zinc, which we know the dwarves can smelt.

So given heat and sand, and special smelters that can exclude air during both the preliminary MgO production and the smelting process, it seems achievable.

I note that the dwarves can make coke from coal, which must also be done without air contact.  So it seems their smelters can do the job.

[Toady One]

Anything invented in the 1940s kind of sets of warning bells, so I'd need to understand a lot more about what's going on and what the barriers were to doing this previously if there were any.  Wikipedia has India/China smelting zinc ores for over a thousand years, but I have no idea about the specifics/veracity of this.  It also has coke at 1600, which is a little late but not so late as 1940.