382 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



confining the fire within a complete encircling clay wall, whose 

 height was increased as it was found that a more effective 

 draught was obtained thereby. This probably led to the de- 

 velopment of the tall, circular furnaces of clay employed by the 

 famous iron-working tribes of the Bahr-el-Gazal region and 

 elsewhere. If these several graduated methods applied to the 

 reduction of iron ore may be regarded as survivals from various 

 stages in the developmental history of the process, the probability 

 of this industry having been arrived at by the native African 

 negro independently of outside influence is greatly increased. 

 The wide range of dispersal of these methods over Africa south 

 of the Sahara also favours this view. 



" The structure of the most characteristic and most wide- 

 spread form of native African bellows, in which the flexible 

 membranes are worked with a pair of sticks held in the hand, 

 links the modern negro blacksmith with the ancient Egyptian 

 metal-workers of the eighteenth dynasty, who employed the 

 same type of bellows very slightly modified, a type which does 

 not occur outside the confines of the African Continent. The 

 famous eighteenth-dynasty painting at Luxor, representing the 

 casting of the bronze temple doors, shows clearly the form of 

 the ancient Egyptian bellows and establishes their identity with 

 the prevailing Central African form of to-day, incidentally, more- 

 over, proving an affinity between the metallurgical methods of 

 the two peoples. Further researches may prove that the earliest 

 experiments in iron-working took place in Egypt and that the 

 early history of the industry had its home there ; but so far con- 

 vincing evidence of this is not forthcoming and in the meantime 

 a fairly strong case can be made out for the origin and early 

 development of iron-working amongst primitive peoples of 

 negro stock, probably in or near the equatorial region. It may 

 appear revolutionary to suggest with Dr. von Luschau that the 

 African negro may have been the real discoverer of the potenti- 

 alities of iron and the inaugurator of the Iron Age, the introduc- 

 tion of which revolutionised culture in Europe and hastened to 

 a phenomenal extent the advance towards civilisation ; but the 

 supporting evidence is strong enough to call for a following up 

 of the clues."] 



