THE IRON AGE. 21 



cepted, places human knowledge of the directive tendency 

 of the lodestone not only far beyond the limits of history, 

 but even suggests the utilization of that knowledge by 

 wandering hordes for their actual guidance over the wil- 

 dernesses of the earth, at the same extremely remote epoch. 



For the present, however, it is necessary to deal with 

 modern civilization and periods within historical times, 

 and therefore, to begin with an inquiry into the familiarity 

 of the western world with magnetic attraction ; for what- 

 ever the Asiatic people may have known concerning mag- 

 netic polarity, there is no trustworthy evidence that the 

 nations of Europe had the slightest acquaintance with it 

 before the twelfth century of our era. 



It is especially difficult to determine the positive date 

 when any nation made the transition from the bronze to 

 the iron age, and practically impossible to do so in the 

 cases of people who either inhabited countries where iron 

 does not abound, or who never acquired the art of obtain- 

 ing it. In such event, the substitution of implements of 

 iron necessarily imported from other countries for the 

 native ones of bronze, to which the population had become 

 accustomed by ages of use, was an exceedingly slow pro- 

 cess, retarded by the mental inertia of the times, and often 

 by national pride in home customs and handiwork. 

 Hence arises the seeming anomaly that among people far 

 advanced in civilization, the general use of iron can be 

 recognized only at a comparatively late period in their 

 history; while among barbarians, incomparably below 

 them in intellectual attainments, we find evidence of its 

 employment at immensely earlier periods. In Denmark, 

 for example, the age of iron corresponds to that of the 

 beech tree. Hesiod, writing in 850 B. C., speaks of the 

 time when "men wrought in brass, when iron did not 

 exist;" and Homer, although frequently referring to 

 weapons and implements of bronze, mentions iron but 

 rarely. The Aztecs, at the time of the Conquest, knew 

 nothing of the metal, although their soil was impregnated 



