38o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Alarmists tell us that we are using an unfair share of 

 minerals and that there will be none left for future generations. 

 On the other hand, the well-known commercial principle, use an 

 asset whilst you can, is applicable to many iron ores. For when 

 South America, Asia, Africa and Australia smelt their own high- 

 grade ores, iron produced from our poorer ores will not compete 

 in their markets. Hence European ores which can be worked 

 profitably at present may become valueless if not used before 

 the newer countries establish iron industries of their own. If the 

 present opportunity of working such ores be lost there may 

 never be another. 



The real danger to the future in regard to the iron-ore 

 resources of the world is not the limited quantity of ore but the 

 limited supply of coking coal necessary for its reduction. Even 

 if the heat required for smelting iron be supplied electrically, 

 one ton of coking coal is required for the reduction of two tons 

 of iron ore. The supply of iron ore is unquestionably adequate ; 

 indeed, it is certain that there will be plenty remaining when 

 there is no more coking coal left for its reduction. 



[The following most interesting statement as to the dis- 

 covery of the metal iron is copied from the South African 

 Supplement of The Times published on November 5, 1910: 



" Special interest has been aroused in the problem of the 

 origin and history of iron-working in Africa. As is well known, 

 Africa south of the Sahara came into its Iron Age without 

 having passed through a Copper or Bronze Age and thus the 

 development of the iron industry was not reached through 

 the normal sequence of successive stages which characterised the 

 culture-history of Europe, North Africa and elsewhere. * Savage ' 

 Africa passed directly from stone to iron. The question arises — 

 Did the native negro peoples acquire the art of iron-working 

 from peoples who had already acquired and developed it or 

 is the art indigenous amongst them and a product of native 

 inventiveness ? Recent researches and deductions by Dr. von 

 Luschau and others have tended to support the latter hypothesis 

 and speculations have arisen as to the possibility of the art of 

 extracting iron from the ore and of forging it into useful appli- 

 ances having not only been developed at an early period amongst 

 the negro peoples of Africa but, further, of its having been trans- 

 mitted through Egypt into Europe. If further archaeological 

 investigations support this view and if it can finally be proved 

 that the relatively highly cultured Bronze Age peoples of Europe 

 owe to the African native the suggestion that iron could be 



