C 2 EARLIEST KNOWLEDGE 



the latter purposes, they were better adapted to 

 them than those implements of flint or other 

 hard stones, or hard wood, which had been before 

 used by the most ancient tribes, and which were 

 also found among the savage people inhabiting 

 Australia, who were discovered in the middle of 

 the last century. 



A well-known passage in Hesiod affirms, that, 

 in remote ages, " The earth was worked with 

 brass, because iron had not then been discovered;" 

 and Lucretius bears testimony to the same pur- 

 pose in Book 5, 1. 1286, 



" Et prior aeris erat, quam ferri, cognitus usus." 



This is confirmed by the implements of copper 

 found in the ancient mines, which will be here- 

 after noticed, in Siberia and in Nubia ; whose 

 working must have ceased some thousand years 

 ago. 



When Brazil was first discovered by the Por- 

 tuguese, the rude inhabitants used fish hooks of 

 gold, but had no iron, though their soil abounded 

 in that metal. The people in Hispaniola and 

 Mexico were, in like manner, unacquainted with 

 iron when first visited by the Spaniards ; though 

 they had both ornaments and implements of 

 gold, and weapons of copper ; which latter, as 

 we learn from the analysis of Humboldt, they 

 had acquired the art of hardening by an alloy of 

 tin. 



