ANCIENT IRON WORKERS. 23 



their metallurgical knowledge to places where the ore 

 existed, but like knowledge did not ; and who taught 

 mining and iron-working to the Hellenes, or to those who 

 occupied the land before them. 



Following the Dactyls came the Cabin, a second and 

 more skillful band of iron-workers, who were indeed more 

 handicraftsmen than miners. Concerning these, all rec- 

 ords are most obscure and conflicting, and they are, be- 

 sides, inextricably entangled with the myths of several 

 nations. Like the Dactyls, the Cabiri came from Phrygia 

 to Samothrace, L,emnos and Imbros. Their cult seems to 

 have attained its greatest vigor, however, at Samothrace, 

 and ultimately to have spread to Macedonia and Phoenicia. 

 It possessed great vitality, since as late as the fourth cen- 

 tury of our era it was in a flourishing existence. 



The Samothracian Cabiri became combined with the 

 Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Heaven, who 

 presided over the mariners; and with the Egyptian Phtha- 

 Sokari and the Greek Haephaestos ; and later with the 

 Corybantes and Curetes, which appear to have been other 

 bands belonging to the same family. Their worship fre- 

 quently changed form, so that even the mystic recitals of 

 the Orphic hymns relating to it, now ascribed to the false 

 Orpheus or Onomacritus, who lived as late as 514 B. C., 

 are a confused jumble of forgeries, to which even the 

 Christian philosophers are said to have added their quota. 



From the various legends and traditions, however, the 

 probable fact appears that the first iron miners of Greece 

 came from Phrygia, which abounded in the metal, and 

 settled in Samothrace. Here they instituted the myster- 

 ies which so long afterwards prevailed, and in the begin- 

 ning, as a proof of their supernatural skill, they exhibited 

 the attractive phenomena of the lodestone through the 

 mystic working of the so-called Samothracian rings. 



The first mention of the magnet in the Greek classics is 



cunning Vulcan, the black iron, carried it to the fire and produced won- 

 derful work." 



