vived, and occupying the bottom of the crucible in the 
state of fine carbonated crude iron. Here then is a com- 
plete alteration in the quality of the metal, though obtain- 
ed from the same ore ; for we cannot consider iron com- 
bined with oxygen, to which earthy bases are given, in any 
other light than that of an ore. Again, let a portion of 
mixture, exactly similar to the last, have added to it dou- 
ble or tripple its weight of bottle glass, and subject the 
whole to an equal heat with the former experiments, near- 
ly a complete revival of all the metal will be found to 
have taken place ; its quality, however, will be highly ox- 
ygenated and brittle. Such experiments clearly demon- 
strate, that the various qualities of crude iron are entirely 
owing to the mixtures in the ore, and their treatment ; 
and that iron, considered as a simple metallic substance,, 
is the same in point of quality in all ores. 
If iron was originally formed in a metallic state, its pro- 
perty of decomposing water, whether casually exposed to 
a moist atmosphere, or removed at various depths from 
the surface, furnishes an hypothesis as to the primitive 
principle of iron ores ; that part of the water— by far the 
greatest- — which remained undecomposed, would serve 
as a medium, or vehicle of suspension, and conveyance 
to the oxyde ; this again, In Its turn, would be deposited 
either at the fountain-head, or at a greater or lesser dis- 
tance from jt, according to the affinities exerted upon it 
by other substances with which it might come in contact. 
Corresponding with this supposition, we commonly find 
those ores which are formed in vertical masses or knobs, 
approached by a great number of small veins occupying 
the smallest fissure or crevice in the rock. Time, and 
the re-action of additional water and acids, would a 
second time carry off a portion of the ore in chemical u« 
nion ; this, by the exertion of new affinities, would become 
precipitated, and piixed with the suspended earths, to form 
