PROCEEDINGS. Ixi 



hole in a bank of earth suitably situated, charging the same with ore and fuel 

 and permitting the wind to blow favorably upon the arrangement so as to fan the 

 fuel to the requisite heat, suggests the accidental production of the metal as 

 the result of forest fires ; and the discovery of small lumps which might be found 

 upon the ground, — after the conflagration — -would naturally suggest the inference 

 that the metal was the product of the action of the fire upon certain masses of 

 brown earth or ore which might be found upon the ground in the vicinity. 



Job 28th and 2nd : " Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is melted out of 

 the stone." 



Deuteronomy 8th and 9th : " A land whose stones are iron, and out of whose 

 hills thou mayest dig brass." 



The iron rocks of Elba, Styria and Spain, and the processes employed for the 

 reduction of the metal, are described by writers before the Christian era, the 

 product being exported to other countries, notably to Italy, to be used in the 

 production of tools ; but the methods employed were evidently not very reliable 

 and the product not uniform, as liistorians of the second century complained that 

 the knives, altliough very hard, were so brittle that the cutting edge splintered 

 off, which was probably due to the inferior quality of the steel of which they 

 were made and imperfect knowledge as to the working of it. I should remark 

 that I can not claim any originality in this paper, not even to researches at first 

 hand from the old writers themselves, but am indebted to well known treatises 

 upon the subject bj"^ able writers and investigators. 



It seems probable that the grade of the metal, which we know as steel, was 

 known and utilized bj' the ancients about as early as the purer metal ; in fact, we 

 think it not improbable that the different qualities of the ore obtained from 

 different localities governed the uses which were made of the several products. 

 It would seem also that the rude processes employed for the extraction of the 

 metal rendered the resulting material a somewhat uncertain matter, a large part 

 of the metal in the shape of pig metal or cast iron being tlirown away with the 

 slag as a product for which, for a very long period, aud in fact up to a compara- 

 tively recent era, no use was found. Egyptians sculptures antedating the christian 

 €ra by 1500 years or mote, represent workmen or snuths, operating bellows for 

 blowing the fire used in the production of the metal from the ore, or in the sub- 

 sequent operations of fashioning it into the articles for which it was found to be 

 adapted, and we think it very reasonable to conceive that this recognized means 

 of urging the fire bj' a forced blast of atmospheric air, directed upon and amongst 

 the molten mass was the initial discovery which might be established as the link, 

 which has connected the crude processes of the ancients with the magnificent 

 achievements of chemistry in its application to modern metallurgy, the analogy 

 being found in the different effects, which were evidently known to the ancients, 

 of so manipulating the tuyeres and blasts of air, at certain stages of the operation 

 as to produce the desired result, at times intensifying the heat and reducing the 

 metal and then if metal of a steely character were wanted enabling the metal, 

 after its extraction from its earthy oxides, to become impregnated with carbon 

 from the fuel. 



The processes were without doubt only experimental, and not understood, some 



