74 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



METALLURGY 



In an article printed in the Proceedings of the National Academy 

 of Sciences there was presented a paper giving the results of a research 

 into the development of metallm-gy.^^ In this article it is shown 

 that the progress of metallm-gy up to this age of great progress 

 was dependent on the incT*ease of heat by various devices. By this 

 man was gradually able to work the great pentad of metals famihar 

 to him in nature, namely, copper, tin, gold, silver, and iron, forming the 

 substantial basis upon which modern metallurgy rests. 



Modern metallurgy is truly a wonder-worker. With the combi- 

 nation of engineering, chemistry, and physics man has freed elements 

 which have never before appeared in the metallic state. 



Necessarily metallurgy appears at a comparatively late date in the 

 history of man's acquaintance with fire. Its rudiments are, however, 

 in the fireplace of early man. The gentle draught of air or the more 

 active breeze freshens up his fire, and this may be accomphshed in 

 still air with a broad leaf or a manufactured fan. Farther on it is 

 found that by blowing through a tube made of one of the grasses a 

 more direct and intense blast of air can be produced. The tube is to 

 become the tuyere and the fan the blast driver, combined in the bel- 

 lows and culminating in the vast apparatus for forced preheated 

 draft in the modern colossi of the metal industry. 



Because of the specialization of the industry and its multifarious 

 demands, as sources of metals, ores, and fuel, transportation and com- 

 merce, together with inventions and skilled workers, there arose cen- 

 ters or foci renowned in the ancient world for metal working. To a 

 certain degree this was preceded by a period of discrete or household 

 industry observed generally in Africa. 



The niceties of the reduction of ores remained for modern science, 

 early metal workers confining their attention to varieties which could 

 be reduced by the facilities and knowledge in their possession. It is 

 possible that the Bronze Age even at its focus may have overlapped 

 the Iron Age, and it is not strange that some students should have 

 been led to assert that iron preceded bronze. The accumulated 

 knowledge required for the reduction of an inconspicuous ore to 

 secure a metal not known in a free state and with properties and 

 value unknown is greater than the production of an alloy of two 

 metals, one free and the other practically free, and both known to 

 man for untold generations. There are also the high temperature, 

 1,200^ to 1,300° C, and the experimental data on fluxes required in 

 the reduction of iron ore. The metallurgy of iron was a distinct 

 advance on that of bronze and made use of the experimental know- 

 ledge and mechanical equipment acquired in the Bronze Age. The 



"Walter Hough. Man and Metals, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 2, March, 1916, p. 123. 



