62 IRON AND STEEL. 



with Spanish swords of superior quality. Diodorus Siculus speaks of 

 Spanish two-edged swords " exactly tempered with steel," made from 

 iron which had been buried in the ground " to eat out all weaker 

 particles of the metal, and leave only the strongest and purest." The 

 notion is not yet quite extinct that rust first attacks and destroys the 

 poorer and baser parts of the iron, leaving the finest and the best. 

 The manufacture of Toledo blades, begun in prehistoric times, has 

 continued till our day, attaining its greatest proportions, as the 

 weapons attained their greatest celebrity, in the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries. 



When Csesar invaded Britain, 55 years before our era, he found 

 iron in use there. Most accounts represent that the natives who met 

 the Romans employed chariots armed with iron scythes. I have 

 looked carefully through Csesar for confirmation of that statement ; 

 but, though I find many references to the chariots, I find no account 

 of the iron scythes. It is certain, however, that the Britons had 

 iron. Some writers think that they did not make it, but obtained 

 what they had from the Belgse, with whom they had considerable 

 intercourse, and who certainly manufactured iron. Others maintain 

 that the Britons themselves made iron. Caesar says of them : " They 

 use either brass or iron rings, determined at a certain weight, as their 

 money. Tin is produced in the midland regions ; in the maritime 

 iron ; but the quantity of it is small ; they employ brass, which is 

 imported." Caesar's stay on the island was brief, and his knowledge 

 of it far from extensive or accurate. My own belief is that at the 

 time of Caesar's visits, iron had been made in Britain for centuries, 

 and in considerable quantities. At various places in England, but 

 chiefly in the Weald of Kent, the Weald of Sussex, and in the Forest 

 of Dean in Gloucestershire, have been found vast beds of cinder or 

 slag, the remains of iron works which existed there in very early times. 

 That these operations were carried on during the Roman occupation 

 or later is evidenced by the fact that Roman coins and pottery have 

 been found in the cinder. But I believe they were also carried on 

 before the arrival of the Romans. The smelting operations were to 

 a large extent conducted in wind bloomaries, without any artificial 

 blast. These bloomaries were built on the tops of hills, with openings 

 in the direction of the prevailing winds. The ore, mined with infin- 

 ite patience and toil, was carried up to these furnaces gn men's 



