62 
THE QEOLOOIST. 
found by the neighboimng blacksmiths to bo malleable in a cold 
state.* Meteoric iron has even been worked by tribes to whom the 
use of common iron was unknown. Thus Amerigo Yespucci speaks 
of savages near the mouth of the La Plata, who had manufactured 
arrow-heads with iron derived from an aerolite.f Such cases are 
certainly of rare occurrence, but they are not without their import- 
ance, for they explain how man may probably have first become 
acquainted with iron, and they also account for the occasional traces 
of iron in tombs of the Stone-age, if, indeed, this fact be well 
established. 
It is, notwithstanding, evident that the regular working of terres- 
trial iron-ore must have been a necessary condition of the commence- 
ment and progress of the Iron-age. 
Now iron-ore is generally found in most countries, but it has 
usually the look of common stone, being distinguished neither by its 
weight, nor colour. Moreover, its smelting requires a much 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 laboriously 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 favours those privi- 
leged mortals who combine a keen spirit of observation with serious 
meditation and with practical sense, the discovery was not less diffi- 
cult nor less meritorious. We need not, then, be surprised if man 
arrived but tardily at the manufacture of iron and steel, which is 
still daily being improved. 
In Carinthia traces of a most primitive method of producing iron 
have been noticed. The process seems to have been as follows : — 
On the declivity of a hill was dug an excavation, in which was 
lighted a large fire. When this began to subside, fragments of very 
pure ore (hydroxyde) were thrown into it, and covered by a new 
heap of wood. When all the fuel had been consumed, small lumps 
of iron would then be found among the ashes. J All blowing appa- 
* Pallas. — "Voyages en Russie," Paris, 1793, vol. iv., p. 595. There was but 
one mass of meteoric iron ; it weighed 1,600 lbs. 
t " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," vol. ii., art. 8, p. 178. 
j Communicated to the author by mining-engineers in Carinthia. 
