Iron* 
445 
as a material of luxurious refinement, this real king of metals, gov- 
erns, assists, or modifies every operation which stimulates the in- 
genuity of man. Every trade without exception is dependent on 
it, while it borrows the aid of but very few in return. Agriculture 
and mechanics, chemistry and mineralogy, astronomy and naviga- 
tion, all confess its universal utility. Medicine respects it — -sur- 
gery might almost worship it. Painting is indebted to it for many 
of her favourite colours, and music for some of her sweetest sounds. 
Universally diffused throughout our globe, we trace it under every 
form, assuming every hue, mingling in every combination—the 
favourite instrument of the wisdom and goodness of the Deity. It 
enters into the composition of all our food— -it constitutes an im- 
portant portion of the soil which supports us. It sparkles in the 
eye of health, and blooms in the blushing cheek of youth and beau- 
ty — it tints the gems of the mine and the flowers of the forest, and 
its powerful influence presides in some measure over every pro- 
duction of art, and every process of nature. 
When we reflect on the unlimited usefulness, the inexhaustible 
variety, and the interesting difficulties which this substance dis- 
plays to our consideration, it may seem matter of surprise that it 
should not have been already thoroughly examined by scientific 
men ; and indeed the author of this sketch was long of opinion that 
nothing remained for investigation. The better he became acquaint- 
ed with the subject however, the more fully was he convinced, 
that from some cause or other, iron has not obtained a due share of 
attention ; that disputes about absolute caloric, or the radical of mu- 
riatic acid, or the constituents of the precious stones, or the exact 
specific gravity of the gasses, with an hundred other chemical in- 
vestigations, which, even when discovered, add but little to our 
knowledge and nothing to our happiness — -have puzzled the judge- 
ment and distracted the invention of philosophers, while the hum- 
bler, more attainable, but incomparably more important processes 
of manufacture, lay neglected or forgotten. Thus in the essays of 
the celebrated Klaproth, which are models of science and consum- 
mate skill, there is not a single analysis of the ores, or oxyds of 
iron ; and Boucher and Courtivreau, the French academicians, 
though the authors and compilers of a long and elaborate treatise 
on the arts of the furnace and the forge, gives us no reason what- 
ever for supposing that they ever made an experiment upon the 
subject. Swedenborg has also furnished a minute and verbose 
account of the Swedish modes of manufacture, which is equally 
destitute of chemical investigation ; abounding however, like his 
