GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 289 



aerolites there are some composed of pure iron, with a little nickel, 

 which alters neither the appearance nor the qualities of the metal. 

 Thus the celebrated meteoric stone met with by Pallas in Siberia was 

 found by the neighboring blacksmiths to be malleable in a cold state. 1 

 Meteoric iron has even been worked by tribes to whom the use of com- 

 mon iron was unknown. Thus Amerigo Vespucci speaks of savages 

 near the mouth of the La Plata, who had manufactured arrow-heads 

 of iron derived from an aerolite. 2 Such cases are certainly of rare 

 occurrence, but they are not without their importance, for they ex- 

 plain how man may probably have first become acquainted with iron, 

 and they also account for the occasional traces of iron in tombs of the 

 Stone-age, if, indeed, this fact be well established. 



It is, notwithstanding, evident that the regular working of terres- 

 trial iron-ore must have been a necessary condition of the commence- 

 ment and progress of the Iron-age. 



Now iron-ore is generally found in most countries, but it has usually 

 the appearance of stone, being distinguished neither by its weight 

 nor color. Moreover, its smelting requires a much greater degree of 

 heat than copper or tin, and this renders its production considerably 

 more difficult than that of bronze. 



But even when iron had been obtained, what groping in the dark, 

 and how much laboriously accumulated experience did it not require, 

 to bring forth at will bar-iron or steel! Chance, if chance there be, 

 may have played a part in it ; but as chance only favors those privi- 

 leged mortals who combine a keen spirit of observation with serious 

 meditation and with practical sense, the discovery was not less diffi- 

 • cult nor less meritorious. We need not, then, be surprised if man 

 arrived but tardily at the manufacture of iron and steel, which is still 

 daily being improved. 



In Carinthia traces of a most primitive method of producing iron 

 have been noticed. The process seems to have been as follows: On 

 the declivity of a hill an excavation was dug, in which was lighted a 

 large fire. When this began to subside, fragments of very pure ore 

 (hydroxyd) were thrown into it, and covered by a new heap of wood. 

 When all the fuel had been consumed, small lumps of iron would then 

 be found among the ashes. 3 All blowing apparatus was in this man- 

 ner dispensed with — an important fact when we come to consider how 

 much its use complicates the metallurgical operations, because it im- 

 plies the application of mechanics. Thus, certain tribes in southern 

 Africa, although manufacturing iron and working it tolerably well, 

 have not achieved the construction of our common kitchen-bellows, 

 apparently so simple; they blow laboriously through a tube, or by 

 means of a bladder affixed to it. 



The Romans produced iron by the so-called Catalonian process, and 

 the remains of Roman works of that description have been discovered 



1 Pallas. " Voyages en Russie," Paris, 1793, vol. iv, p. 595. There was but one mass of 

 meteoric iron; it weighed 1,600 lbs. 



2 " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," vol. ii, art. 8, p. 178. 



3 Communicated to the author by mining-engineers in Carinthia. 



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