most difficult discovery, and must at all events have been preceded by a knowledge of the use of fire, as derived from the effects of lightning or from volcanic action.

The stone-age was therefore probably preceded by a period, perhaps of some length, during which man was unacquainted with the art of producing fire. This, according to Mr. Flourens, indicates that the cradle of mankind was situated in a warm climate.*

The art of producing fire has been perhaps the greatest achievement of human intelligence. The use of fire lies at the root of almost every species of industry. It enables the savage to fell trees, as it allows civilized nations to work metals. Its importance is so great, that deprived of it man would perhaps scarcely have risen above the condition of the brute. Even the ancients were sensible of this, as is witnessed by the fable of Prometheus. As to their sacred perpetual fire, its origin seems to lie in the difficulty of procuring fire, thereby rendering its preservation essential.

In Europe the stone-age came to an end by the introduction of bronze. This metal is an alloy of about nine parts of copper and one part of tin. It melts and moulds well; the molten mass in cooling slowly acquires a tolerable degree of hardness, inferior to that of steel, it is true, but superior to that of very pure iron. We therefore understand how bronze would long be used for manufacturing cutting-instruments, weapons and numerous personal ornaments. The northern antiquaries have very properly called this second great phase in the development of European civilization the bronze-age.

The bronze articles of this period, with a few trifling exceptions, have not been produced by hammering, but have been regularly cast, often with a considerable degree of skill. Even the sword-blades were cast, and the hammer (of stone) was only used to impart a greater degree of hardness to the edge of the weapon.

The bronze-age has therefore witnessed a mining industry, which was completely wanting during the stone-age. Now the art of mining is so essential to civilization, that without it the world would perhaps yet be exclusively inhabited by savages.

* Flourens: De la longévité humaine. Paris, 1835, p. 127. "Man, from the construction of his teeth, his stomach, and his intestines, is primitively frugivorous, like the monkey. But the frugivorous diet is the most unfavorable, because it constrains its followers perpetually to abide in those countries which produce fruit at all seasons, consequently in warm climates. But, when once the art of cooking was introduced, and applied both to vegetable and animal productions, man could extend and vary the nature of his diet. Man has consequently two diets; the first is primitive, natural and instinctive, and by it he is frugivorous, the second is artificial, being due entirely to his intelligence, and by it he is omnivorous."

+ Bronze is still used for casting bells, cannon, and certain portions of machinery. It must not be confounded with common brass, which is a compound of copper and zinc, much less hard, and appearing only in the iron-age.

It is then worth our while to enquire more closely into the origin of bronze.

Copper was not difficult to obtain. In the first place, virgin copper is not particularly scarce. Then, the different kinds of ore which contain copper combined with other elements, are either highly colored, or present a marked metallic appearance, and are consequently easily known; they are besides not hard to smelt, so as to separate the metal. Finally, copper-ore is not at all scarce; it is met with in the older geological series of most

countries.

Virgin tin is unknown, but tin ore is heavy, of dark color and very easy to smelt. However frequent copper may be, tin is of rare occurence. Thus the only mines in Europe which produce tin at the present day are those of Cornwall in England, and of the Erzgebirge and Fichtelgebirge in Germany.

But the question arises, whether, previous to the discovery of bronze, man, owing to the great rarity of tin, may not have begun by using copper in a pure state. If so, there would have

been a copper-age between the stone-age and the bronze-age.

In America this has been really the case. When discovered by the Spaniards, both the two centres of civilization, Mexico and Peru, had bronze, composed of copper and tin, and used it for manufacturing arms and cutting-instruments in the absence of iron and steel, which were unknown in the New World. But the admirable researches of Messrs. Squier and Davis in the antiquities of the Mississippi valley* have brought to light an ancient civilization of a remarkable nature, and distinguished by the use of raw virgin copper, worked in a cold state, by hammering, without the aid of fire. The reason of its being so worked lies in the nature of pure copper, which when melted flows sluggishly and is not very fit for casting. A peculiar characteristic of the metal, that of occasionally containing crystals of virgin silver, betrays its origin, and shows that it was brought from the neighborhood of Lake Superior. This region is still rich in metallic copper, of which single blocks, attaining a weight of fifty tons, have lately been discovered. There was even

found at the bottom of an old mine a great mass of copper, which the ancients had evidently been unable to raise, and which they had abandoned, after having cut off the projecting parts with stone hatchets.t

The date of that American copper-age is unknown. All we know is, that it must reach at least as far back as ten centuries, that space of time being deemed necessary for the growth of the

*Squier and Davis: Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge; Washington, 1848. It is one of the most splendid archæological works ever published.

+ Lapham: The Antiquities of Wisconsin. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1855, p. 76.

virgin forests now flourishing upon the remains of that antique civilization, of which the modern Indians have not even retained a tradition.

It is finally worthy of remark, that the mound-builders, as the Americans call the race of the copper-age, seem to have immediately preceded and prepared the way for the Mexican civilization, destroyed by the Spaniards; for, in progressing southwards, a gradual transition is noticed from the ancient earthworks of the Mississippi valley to the more modern constructions of Mexico, as found by Cortez.

In Europe the remains of a copper-age are wanting. Here and there a solitary hatchet of pure copper is found. But this can be easily accounted for by the greater frequency of copper, while tin had usually to be brought from a greater distance, so that its supply was more precarious.

As Europe did not witness a regular development of a copperage, it seems, according to Mr. Troyon's very just remark, that the art of manufacturing bronze was brought from another quarter of the world, where it had been previously invented. It was most probably some region in Asia, producing both copper and tin, where those two metals were first brought into artificial combination, and where also traces of a still earlier copper-age are likely to be found.

An apparently serious objection might be started here by raising the question, how mines could be worked without the aid of steel. This however is sufficiently explained by the fact, that the hardest rocks can be easily managed through the agency of fire. By lighting a large fire against a rock, the latter is rent and fissured, so as considerably to facilitate its quarrying. This method was frequently employed when wood was cheaper, and is even practised at the present day in the mines of the Rammelsberg in Germany, where it facilitates the working of a rock of extreme hardness.

That metal of dingy and sorry appearance, but more truly precious than gold or the diamond-iron-at length appears, giving a wonderful impulse to the progressive march of mankind, and characterising the third great phase in the development of European civilization, very properly called the iron-age.

Our planet never produces iron in its metallic or virgin state, for the simple reason, that it is too liable to oxydation. But among the aerolites there are some composed of pure iron with a little nickel, which alters neither the appearance nor sensibly the qualities of the metal. Thus the celebrated meteoric iron discovered by Pallas in Siberia was found by the neighboring blacksmiths to be malleable in a cold state.* Meteoric iron has even been *Pallas: Voyages en Russie, Paris, 1793, iv, 595. There was but one mass of this meteoric iron; it weighed 1600 pounds.

worked by tribes to whom the use of common iron was unknown. Thus Amerigo Vespucci speaks of savages near the mouth of the La Plata, who had manufactured arrow-heads with iron derived from an aerolite.* Such cases are certainly of rare occurrence, but they are not without their importance, 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 terrestrial iron-ore must have been a necessary condition of the commencement and progress of the iron-age.

Now, iron-ore is widely diffused in most countries, but it has usually the look of common stones, being distinguished more by its weight than its color. 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 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 favors those privileged mortals who combine a keen spirit of observation with serious meditation and with practical sense, the discovery was not less difficult or less meritorious. We need not then be surprised, if man arrived but tardily at the manufacture of iron and steel, which is still daily improving.

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 (hydrous-oxyd) 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. All blowing apparatus was in this manner dispensed with; an important fact when we come to consider how much the use of a blast complicates metallurgical operations, because it implies the application of mechanics. Thus certain tribes in Southern Africa, although manufacturing iron and working it tolerably well, have not achieved the construction of our common kitchen bellows, apparently so simple; they blow laboriously through a tube, or by means of a bladder affixed to it.

The Romans produced iron by the so-called Catalonian process, and the remains of Roman works of that description have been discovered and investigated in Upper Carniola in Austria.‡ Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. ii, art. 8, p. 178. Communicated to the author by mining engineers in Carinthia.

Jahrbuch der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt. Wien, 1850, ii, 199. Carinthia and Upper Carniola formed part of the Roman province Noricum, celebrated for its iron.

The Catalonian forge is still used in the Pyrenees, where it yields tolerable results, but it consumes a large quantity of charcoal, requires much wind, and is only to be applied to pure ore, containing but a very small proportion of earthy matter producing scoriæ; for the process consists in a mere reduction with a soldering and welding together of the reduced particles, without the metal properly melting. According to the manner in which the operation is conducted, bar-iron or steel are obtained at will. This direct method dispenses with the intermediate production of cast iron, which was unknown to the ancients, and which is now the only means of producing iron on a great scale.

Silver accompanies the introduction of iron into Europe, at least in the northern parts, while gold was already known during the bronze-age. This is natural, for gold is generally found as a pure metal, while silver has usually to be extracted from different kinds of ore by more or less complicated metallurgical operations-for example, by cupellation.

With iron appear also for the first time in Europe, glass, coined money, that powerful agent of commerce, and finally the alphabet, which, as the money of intelligence, vastly increases the activity and circulation of thought, and is sufficient of itself to characterize a new and wonderful era of progress. From thence can we date the dawn of history and of science, in particular of astronomy.

The fine arts also reveal, with the introduction of iron in Europe, a new and important element, indicating a striking advance. Already in the stone-age, but more in the bronze-age, the natural taste for art reveals itself in the ornaments bestowed upon pottery and metallic objects. These ornaments consist in dots, circles, and zigzag, spiral, and S-shaped lines, the style bearing a geometrical character, but showing pure taste and real beauty of its kind, although devoid of all delineations of animated objects, either in the shape of plants or animals. It is only with the iron-age that art, taking a higher range, rose to the representation of plants, animals, and even of the human frame. No wonder, then, if idols of the bronze-age, as well as of the stone-age, are wanting in Europe. It is to be presumed that the worship of fire, of the sun and of the moon, was prevalent in remote antiquity, at least during the bronze-age, perhaps also during the stone-age.

The preceding pages constitute a sketch, certainly very rough and imperfect, of the development of civilization. They establish however in a striking manner the fact of a progress, slow,

* "The circulation of ideas is for the mind what the circulation of specie is for commerce, a true source of wealth." C. V. de Bonstetten: L'homme du Midi et l'homme du Nord. Genève, 1826, p. 175.