copper, were easily fused, and a single process sufficed to make them available for every purpose; the principal art required for fabricating implements of copper depending on the proper proportions and qualities of alloy introduced.

"Those three metals," as Robinson has observed, "are found in their perfect state in the clefts of rocks, in the sides of mountains, or the channels of rivers. They were accordingly first known, and first applied to use. But iron, the most serviceable of all, and to which man is most indebted †, is never discovered in its perfect form ; its gross and stubborn ore must feel twice the force of fire, and go through two laborious processes, before it becomes fit for use. Man was long acquainted with the other metals before he acquired the art of fabricating iron, or attained such ingenuity as to perfect an invention, to which he is indebted for those instruments wherewith he subdues the earth and commands all its inhabitants."

In the infancy of the arts and sciences, the difficulty of working iron might long withhold the secret of its superiority over copper and bronze; but it cannot reasonably be supposed that a nation so advanced, and so eminently skilled in the art of working metals as the Egyptians, should have remained ignorant of its use, even if we had no evidence of its having been known to the Greeks and other people; and the constant employment * Robertson, America, book iv. p. 125. † Vide Herodot. i. 68.

of bronze arms and implements is not a sufficient argument against their knowledge of iron, since we find the Greeks and Romans made the same things of bronze long after the period when iron was universally known.

Another argument, to show that bronze was used in Greece before iron, is derived from the word xaλxeus (smith) in Greek, having the signi fication of "coppersmith," whether applied to a worker of copper or iron.* In Latin, on the contrary, ferrum, "an iron," is the word frequently applied to a sword; and some have hence argued the use of iron for those weapons, at the earliest period, among the Romans. Yet we find that their swords were constantly made of bronze, as well as their defensive armour. The Etruscans almost invariably used iron for swords, daggers, spear heads, and other offensive weapons, and confined bronze to defensive armour; a much more reasonable custom, inasmuch as the iron is more capable of perforating the softer metal: and if the early Romans did make their swords of iron, it is probable they adopted the custom from their Italian neighbours.

After examining numerous authorities, some of which assert that nations of antiquity were confined to the use of copper and bronze, while others affirm that iron was known at a most remote epoch, we

* Hom. Od. ix. 391. Herodot. i. 68.

Those who derive barzel from "bers," the Chaldee and Syriac word signifying "to perforate," might perhaps suppose ferrum "iron taken from "ferire" "to strike."

may still remain in uncertainty respecting the question. But to conclude, from the want of iron instruments, or arms, bearing the names of early monarchs of a Pharaonic age, that bronze was alone used, is neither just nor satisfactory; since the decomposition of that metal, especially when buried for ages in the nitrous soil of Egypt, is so speedy as to preclude the possibility of its preservation. Until we know in what manner, and for what sort of stone, the Egyptians employed bronze tools, the discovery of them affords no additional light, nor even argument; since, as I before observed, the Greeks and Romans continued to make bronze instruments of various kinds long after iron was known to them*; and the general use of bronze may have arisen from the greater facility of working the metal, remelting and casting it afresh, as well as from its being easier to find than iron for though this last, in its various combinations, is more universally diffused over the face of the globet, it does not always occur in a state of which the miner can easily avail himself, and I only know of one mine in Egypt worked by the ancients. It lies in the eastern desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, at a place called Hammámi, and was discovered by my friend Mr. Burton, who visited it in 1822, and found the metal to be in the form of specular and red iron ore.

In Ethiopia iron was much more abundant than *Vide Beckmann's History of Inventions, on the early use of steel, vol. iv. As Pliny observes, "Metallorum omnium vena ferri largissima est," xxxiv. c. 14.

in Egypt, and Herodotus may be correct in stating that copper was there a rare metal*; though we are not disposed to believe his assertion of prisoners in that country being bound with golden fetters.

In the sepulchres of Thebes, I have had occasion to remark butchers represented sharpening their knives on a round bar of metal attached to their apron; and the blue colour of the blades and the distinction maintained between the bronze and steel weapons in the tomb of Remeses III., one being painted red and the other blue, leave little doubt that the Egyptians of an early Pharaonic age were acquainted with the use of iron.

Many implements of husbandry, the plough, the hoe, and the fork, were frequently of wood, as simple in their form as in the materials of which they were made; the ploughshare was probably sometimes sheathed with, or the blade of a hoe formed of, metal; but it is uncertain whether iron was employed for this purpose, or if, like the tools of earlier days mentioned by Hesiodt, they were confined to bronze.

Several wooden hoes have been found in Egypt, and are now preserved in the museums of Europe: the blades and handles are simply inserted the one into the other, and bound together in the middle with a twisted rope; and their general appearance, according exactly with those represented in the agricultural scenes of the tombs, shows them to

*Herodot. iii. 23.

+ Hesiod, Oper. et Dies. v. 151. "Men tilled the ground with bronze, iron not being as yet known."

have been the kind most commonly used*, even to the latest times.

2

No. 377.

Wooden hoes.

Berlin Muscum.

It is true that the Berlin Museum has the head of a small hoe, of iron, but of what date is uncertain; and no inference can be drawn from it, especially as its form differs essentially from those of the paintings.

I have already stated that the speedy decomposition of iron would be sufficient to prevent our finding implements of that metal of an early period, and that the greater opportunities of obtaining copper ore, added to the facility of working it, were a reason for preferring the latter whenever it answered the purpose instead of iron. instead of iron. I shall presently endeavour to show how bronze tools might be made available for sculpturing and engraving

* Vide wood-cut, No. 93. Vol. II. p. 99.