BOOK I. ii 



which they say nothing more pernicious could have been brought into the 

 life of man. For it is employed in making swords, javelins, spears, pikes, 

 arrows weapons by which men are wounded, and which cause slaughter, 

 robbery, and wars. These things so moved the wrath of Pliny that he wrote : 

 " Iron is used not only in hand to hand fighting, but also to form the winged 

 missiles of war, sometimes for hurling engines, sometimes for lances, some- 

 times even for arrows. I look upon it as the most deadly fruit of human 

 ingenuity. For to bring Death to men more quickly we have given wings to 

 iron and taught it to fly." 19 The spear, the arrow from the bow, or the bolt 

 from the catapult and other engines can be driven into the body of only one 

 man, while the iron cannon-ball fired through the air, can go through the 

 bodies of many men, and there is no marble or stone object so hard that it 

 cannot be shattered by the force and shock. Therefore it levels the highest 

 towers to the ground, shatters and destroys the strongest walls. Certainly 

 the ballistas which throw stones, the battering rams and other ancient war 

 engines for making breaches in walls of fortresses and hurling down strong- 

 holds, seem to have little power in comparison with our present cannon. 

 These emit horrible sounds and noises, not less than thunder, flashes 

 of fire burst from them like the lightning, striking, crushing, and shatter- 

 ing buildings, belching forth flames and kindling fires even as lightning 

 flashes. So that with more justice could it be said of the impious men of 

 our age than of Salmoneus of ancient days, that they had snatched lightning 

 from Jupiter and wrested it from his hands. Nay, rather there has been 

 sent from the infernal regions to the earth this force for the destruction of 

 men, so that Death may snatch to himself as many as possible by one stroke. 



But because muskets are nowadays rarely made of iron, and the large 

 ones never, but of a certain mixture of copper and tin, they confer more 

 maledictions on copper and tin than on iron. In this connection too, they 

 mention the brazen bull of Phalaris, the brazen ox of the people of Per- 

 gamus, racks in the shape of an iron dog or a horse, manacles, shackles, 

 wedges, hooks, and red-hot plates. Cruelly racked by such instruments, 

 people are driven to confess crimes and misdeeds which they have never 

 committed, and innocent men are miserably tortured to death by every 

 conceivable kind of torment. 



It is claimed too, that lead is a pestilential and noxious metal, for men 

 are punished by means of molten lead, as Horace describes in the ode 

 addressed to the Goddess Fortune : " Cruel Necessity ever goes before thee 

 bearing in her brazen hand the spikes and wedges, while the awful hook and 

 molten lead are also not lacking." 20 In their desire to excite greater odium 

 for this metal, they are not silent about the leaden balls of muskets, and they 

 find in it the cause of wounds and death. 



They contend that, inasmuch as Nature has concealed metals far within 

 the depths of the earth, and because they are not necessary to human life, 

 they are therefore despised and repudiated by the noblest, and should not be 



"Pliny, xxxiv., 39. 



*Horace. Odes, i., 35, 11., 17-20. 



