8 



The Scottish Naturalist. 



These facts, I think, warrant us in exercising caution before 

 accepting chronological divisions based upon the discovery of the 

 use of different implements, in the earlier history of our race. I 

 may remark that one very sufficient reason why few implements or 

 weapons of iron are found, as compared with bronze, lies in the 

 fact that iron rusts, and cannot resist the action of air and water in 

 the same degree that bronze does. 



This leads me to observe that too little account has been taken 

 of the knowledge possessed by the older civilisations of the use of 

 Iron. If we look at the processes known to, and employed by> 

 the natives of South and Western Africa, in the smelting and 

 forging of iron, as recorded by Mungo Park, Livingstone and others? 

 we cannot refuse to the civilisations of Western and Eastern Asia, 

 (which have left such splendid monuments behind them in the arts 

 and in architecture), a knowledge of a metal so abundant and 

 widely spread as iron at least as great as that possessed by the 

 uncivilised races of the dark Continent. Geologically, iron has an 

 age in contemplating which we may well ask History and 

 Archaeology to stand aside. 



Iron is found in rocks of all ages, from the metamorphic schists 

 to some of the latest formations. And in one form or, another it 

 is distributed from the ice-bound regions of Greenland to the burning 

 plains of the great African Continent, from Japan in the far east to 

 the British Isles in the west, throughout every latitude of the 

 Old World, and in most countries of the New World. The pro- 

 fusion with which it has been beneficently distributed over the 

 surface of the globe is in keeping with its utility to the human 

 race. 



Mineralogically, iron is extremely interesting. Its appearance 

 I need not describe. " Iron grey and " steel grey " are house- 

 hold words. It is very rarely found in a native state. Indeed, 

 the existence of native iron, or iron not in chemical combination, 

 has been disputed : though it is generally regarded as uncom- 

 bined when found in meteoric stones, and is capable of being 

 worked without undergoing any preparatory process. Its com- 

 mon form, however, is as an ore. That is, it occurs not native, 

 or pure, but in a compound form, and in the condition of an 

 earth or mineral. 



When we come to make the acquaintance of the different mem- 

 bers of the Iron family, we find it to be a numerous one. There 



