BOOK IX. 421 



He is able to complete this work sometimes in eight hours, sometimes in ten, 

 and again sometimes in twelve. In order that the heat of the fire should not 

 burn his face, he covers it entirely with a cap, in which, however, there are 

 holes through which he may see and breathe. At the side of the hearth is a 

 bar which he raises as often as is necessary, when the bellows blow too violent 

 a blast, or when he adds more ore and charcoal. He also uses the bar 

 to draw off the slags, or to open or close the gates of the sluice, through 

 which the waters flow down on to the wheel which turns the axle that com- 

 presses the bellows. In this sensible way, iron is melted out and a mass 

 weighing two or three centumpondia may be made, providing the iron ore 

 was rich. When this is done the master opens the slag-vent with the tapping- 

 bar, and when all has run out he allows the iron mass to cool. Afterward 

 he and his assistant stir the iron with the bar, and then in order to chip off 

 the slags which had until then adhered to it, and to condense and flatten it, 

 they take it down from the furnace to the floor, and beat it with large wooden 

 mallets having slender handles five feet long. Thereupon it is immediately 



sufficient for their needs, from hematite. Copper alone would not be a very serviceable metal 

 to primitive man, and he early made the advance to bronze : this latter metal requires three 

 metallurgical operations, and presents immeasurably greater difficulties than iron. It is, 

 as Professor Gowland has demonstrated (Presidential Address, Inst, of Metals, London, 1912) 

 quite possible to make bronze from melting stanniferous copper ores, yet such combined 

 occurrence at the surface is rare, and, so far as known, the copper sources from which Asia Minor 

 and Egypt obtained their supply do not contain tin. It seems to us, therefore, that in most 

 cases the separate fusions of different ores and their subsequent re-melting were required to 

 make bronze. The arguments advanced by the archaeologists bear mostly upon the fact 

 that, had iron been known, its superiority would have caused the primitive races to adopt it, 

 and we should not find such an abundance of bronze tools. As to this, it may be said that 

 bronze weapons and tools are plentiful enough in Egyptian, Mycenaean, and early Greek 

 remains, long after iron was demonstrably well known. There has been a good deal 

 pronounced by etymologists on the history of iron and copper, for instance, by Max MiiUer, 

 (Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. 11, p. 255, London, 1864), and many others, but 

 the amazing lack of metallurgical knowledge nullifies practically all their conclusions. The 

 oldest Egyptian te.xts extant, dating 3500 B.C., refer to iron, and there is in the British 

 Museum a piece of iron found in the Pyramid of Kephron (3700 B.C.) under conditions indicating 

 its co-incident origin. There is e.xhibited also a fragment of oxidized iron lately found by 

 Professor Petrie and placed as of the VI Dynasty (B.C. 3200). Despite this evidence of an 

 early knowledge of iron, there is almost a total absence of Egyptian iron objects for a long 

 period subsequent to that time, which in a measure confirms the view of its disappearance 

 rather than that of ignorance of it. Many writers have assumed that the Ancients must have 

 had some superior art of hardening copper or bronze, because the cutting of the gigantic stone- 

 work of the time could not have been done with that alloy as we know it ; no such hardening 

 appears among the bronze tools found, and it seems to us that the argument is stronger 

 that the oldest Egyptian stoneworkers employed mostly iron tools, and that these have 

 oxidized out of existence. The reasons for preferring copper alloys to iron for decorative 

 objects were equally strong in ancient times as in the present day, and accounts sufficiently 

 for these articles, and, therefore, iron would be devoted to more humble objects less likely to 

 be preserved. Further, the Egyptians at a later date had some prejudices against iron for 

 sacred purposes, and the media of preservation of most metal objects were not open to iron. 

 We know practically nothing of very early Egyptian metallurgy, but in the time of Thotmes 

 III. (1500 B.C.) bellows were used upon the forge. 



Of literary evidences the earliest is in the Shoo King among the Tribute of Yii (2500 

 B.C. ?). Iron is frequently mentioned in the Bible, but it is doubtful if any of the early 

 references apply to steel. There is scarcely a Greek or Latin author who does not mention 

 iron in some connection, and of the earliest, none are so suggestive from a metallurgical point 

 of view as Homer, by whom " laboured " mass (wrought-iron ?) is often referred to. As, for 

 instance, in the Odyssey (i., 234) Pallas in the guise of Mentes, says according to Pope : 



" Freighted with iron from my native land 



" I steer my voyage to the Brutian strand, 



" To gain by commerce for the laboured mass 



" A just proportion of refulgent brass." 



