154 A. A. Hayes on Native Iron from Liberia. 
it conld not be separated but by heat, and hard pounding with 
my largest sledge hammer, and a chisel prepared for the purpose. 
Lalso send you a tea spoon, which I made from some of the ore, 
ee which iu its crude state is superior to the iron brought here for 
i sale by English merchant ae gine I am told by the natives that — 
: it is plentiful, and about three days’ walk from our present place 
of residence, (Bassa Cove,) it is gotten by digging and breaking 
PC ge rocks. It is also said to be in large lumps. In these parts the — 
| natives buy no iron, but dig it out of the ground, or break the ~ 
rocks and get it, as the case may be.” 
The larger specimen before you, when received by me, bore 
on one side the impress of the chisel, the coarse fracturing of a 
tough metal, and marks of oxydation by fire. It was further 
identified by. Wm. Coppinger, Esq., of Philadelphia, as the piece 
received with the letter of Mr. Davis. Mr. Coppinger gave the 
specimen to Rev. H. M. Blodgett, who sent it to Rev. Jose 
Be hg’ whose hands I received it. Soon after I had expres- 
to racy my belief that the specimen was native iron, 
he nace’ before me a large amount of written evidence, show- 
ing that malleable iron, sufficient in quantity to meet the wants 
of the natives, is obtained by heating, and thereby fracturing the 
rocks of the country. The writers use the term ore incorrectly, 
as Mr. Davis does, apparently in the belief that iron ores increas- 
ing in richness become malleable. The metallurgical knowledge 
of the natives is so limited that they are unable to produce co} 
per from the carbonate of Te (Malachite, ) which they carry 
five or six hundred miles, as a medium of traffic; while their 
weapons of iron which I sa examined, show the characters of 
native iron after it has been heated and hammered. 
Physical Characters.—On developing the internal structure of 
: the mass of iron, by i immersion for a few moments in strong nitric 
‘Meteoric masses, and entirely unlike the particles in artificial iron.* 
* The character which i is here pote 
be a hae value in a ree of this kind, 
mi ; 
consist of erg iron Sheed whick are mixe 
iron and nickel, and other bodies as 
lage The 
f in 
es crude 
ore malleable i ‘the differ- 
a 
