A. Morlot on Archeology. 31 
_ stone-age, if indeed this fact be well established. 
It is notwithstanding evident, that the regular working of 
terrestrial iron-ore must have been a necessary condition of the 
commencement and progress of the iron-age. 
ow, iron-ore is widely diffused in most countries, but it has 
usually the look of common stones, being distinguished more b 
its weight than its color. Moreover its smelting requires a muc 
greater degree of heat than copper or tin, and this renders its 
production considerably more difficult than that of bronze. 
But, even when iron had been obtained, what groping in the 
dark and how much accumulated experience did it not require, 
to bring forth at will bar-iron or steel! Chance, if chance there 
be, may have played a part in it. But as chance only favors 
those privileged mortals who combine a keen spirit of observa- 
ery was not less difficult or less meritorious. We need not then 
be surprised, if man arrived but tardily at the manufacture of 
c 
~ the use of a blast complicates metallurgical operations, because 
hus certain tribes in 
tolerably well, have not achieved the construction of our com- 
mon kitchen bellows, apparently so simple; they blow labori- 
ously through a tube, or by means of a bladder atfixed to it. 
Romans produced iron by the so-called Catalonian pro- 
cess, and the remains of Roman works of that description have 
discovered and investigated in Upper Carniola in Austria.} 
* Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. ii, art. 8, p. 178. 
+ Communicated to the author by mining engineers in Carinthia. 
id Jahrbuch der k. E. geologioshen Reichsanstalt. Wien, 1850, ii, 199. Carinthia 
Hep UPPer Carniola part of the Roman province Noricwm, celebrated for 
sg 
ew 
