He is able to complete this work sometimes in eight hours, sometimes in ten,
and again sometimes in twelve. In order that the heat of the fire should not
burn his face, he covers it entirely with a cap, in which, however, there are
holes through which he may see and breathe. At the side of the hearth is a
bar which he raises as often as is necessary, when the bellows blow too violent
a blast, or when he adds more ore and charcoal. He also uses the bar
to draw off the slags, or to open or close the gates of the sluice, through
which the waters flow down on to the wheel which turns the axle that compresses the bellows. In this sensible way, iron is melted out and a mass
weighing two or three centumpondia may be made, providing the iron ore
was rich. When this is done the master opens the slag-vent with the tappingbar, and when all has run out he allows the iron mass to cool. Afterward
he and his assistant stir the iron with the bar, and then in order to chip off
the slags which had until then adhered to it, and to condense and flatten it,
they take it down from the furnace to the floor, and beat it with large wooden
mallets having slender handles five feet long. Thereupon it is immediately
sufficient for their needs, from hematite. Copper alone would not be a very serviceable metal
to primitive man, and he early made the advance to bronze ; this latter metal requires three
metallurgical operations, and presents immeasurably greater difficulties than iron. It is,
as Professor Gowland has demonstrated (Presidential Address, Inst, of Metals, London, 1912)
quite possible to make bronze from melting stanniferous copper ores, yet such combined
occurrence at the surface is rare, and, so far as known, the copper sources from which Asia Minor
and Egypt obtained their supply do not contain tin. It seems to us, therefore, that in most
cases the separate fusions of different ores and their subsequent re-melting were required to
make bronze. The arguments advanced by the archaeologists bear mostly upon the fact
that, had iron been known, its superiority would have caused the primitive races to adopt it,
and we should not find such an abundance of bronze tools. As to this, it may be said that
bronze weapons and tools are plentiful enough in Egyptian, Mycenaean, and early Greek
remains, long after iron was demonstrably well known. There has been a good deal
pronounced by etymologists on the history of iron and copper, for instance, by Max Müller,
(Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. 11, p. 255, London, 1864), and many others, but
the amazing lack of metallurgical knowledge nullifies practically all their conclusions. The
oldest Egyptian texts extant, dating 3500 b.c., refer to iron, and there is in the British
Museum a piece of iron found in the Pyramid of Kephron (3700 B.c.) under conditions indicating
its co-incident origin. There is exhibited also a fragment of oxidized iron lately found by
Professor Pétrie and placed as of the VI Dynasty (b.c. 3200). Despite this evidence of an
early knowledge of iron, there is almost a total absence of Egyptian iron objects for a long
period subsequent to that time, which in a measure confirms the view of its disappearance
rather than that of ignorance of it. Many writers have assumed that the Ancients must have
had some superior art of hardening copper or bronze, because the cutting of the gigantic stonework of the time could not have been done with that alloy as we know it ; no such hardening
appears among the bronze tools found, and it seems to us that the argument is stronger
that the oldest Egyptian stoneworkers employed mostly iron tools, and that these have
oxidized out of existence. The reasons for preferring copper alloys to iron for decorative
objects were equally strong in ancient times as in the present day, and accounts sufficiently
for these articles, and, therefore, iron would be devoted to more humble objects less likely to
be preserved. Further, the Egyptians at a later date had some prejudices against iron for
sacred purposes, and the media of preservation of most metal objects were not open to iron.
We know practically nothing of very early Egyptian metallurgy, but in the time of Thotmes
III. (1500 b.c.) bellows were used upon the forge.
Of literary evidences the earliest is in the Shoo King among the Tribute of Yü (2500
B.c. ?). Iron is frequently mentioned in the Bible, but it is doubtful if any of the early
references apply to steel. There is scarcely a Greek or Latin author who does not mention
iron in some connection, and of the earliest, none are so suggestive from a metallurgical point
of view as Homer, by whom " laboured " mass (wrought-iron ?) is often referred to. As, for
instance, in the Odyssey (1., 234) Pallas in the guise of Mentes, says according to Pope :
" Freighted with iron from my native land
" I steer my voyage to the Brutian strand,
" To gain by commerce for the laboured mass
" A just proportion of refulgent brass."
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