250 



find the manufacture of iron very profitable, the product of their 

 furnaces being held in high esteem by the neighboring tribes, as 

 a tougher and more flexible iron than they can obtain from for- 

 eio-n countries. The furnaces consist of stacks of about six by 

 five feet, and about seven feet high, with a flue in the centre 

 about two feet long by nine or ten inches wide ; the flue, passing 

 to the bottom of the stack, is filled with layers of coal and ore, 

 upon which they force a strong current of air by rude contriv- 

 ances ; nothing is allowed to escape but the dross, and a heavier 

 brittle substance which they remelt in small furnaces ; the iron is 

 left to cool in the furnace, which gives it the appearance of ore, 

 with large particles of dross adhering to it, much blistered in 

 places, with very rough protuberances over much of its surface. 

 Many of these furnaces, with their banks of dross, may be seen in 

 the interior of the country. The color of the ore, mostly of 

 mountain character, is between cherry and brownish red, like red 

 iron-stone. He had seen pieces of fifty or sixty pounds, the result 

 of one blast. They cut the mass when heated with their rude 

 axes as they do wood, showing the good quality of the article. 

 The ore is plentiful in most parts of the country, and of varying 

 quality. The masses of iron are in many places sold as they 

 come from the furnace, but in the interior it is forged into pieces 

 resembling a "pudding-stick," which are used as a medium of 

 exchange in commercial transactions in the markets and in pri- 

 vate barter. Africa has doubtless all the iron required for her 

 extensive wants, and dense forests for the manufacture of the coal 

 to work it. Dr. Hayes wished, therefore, to correct the error in 

 the statement that native iron exists in Africa, to which he had 

 been led by its texture and chemical composition, which were 

 unlike those of manufactured iron in containing quartz crystals 

 and magnetic oxide of iron, with no traces of carbon or its com- 

 pounds. 



Prof. Agassiz continued his remarks on the subject of 

 successive faunse, of which he considered there were 

 more than fifty, capable of as satisfactory proof in geo- 

 logical periods as at the present day, and at least ten 

 more indicated. 



