ues could, of course, be similarly classified; the
ferruginous virtues would include courage, self-reliance and
hopefulness; the non-ferruginous, peaceableness, meekness and chastity.
According to this ethical criterion the moral man would be defined as
one whose conduct is better than we should expect from the per cent. of
iron in his blood.

The reason why iron is able to serve this unique purpose of conveying
life-giving air to all parts of the body is because it rusts so readily.
Oxidation and de-oxidation proceed so quietly that the tenderest cells
are fed without injury. The blood changes from red to blue and _vice
versa_ with greater ease and rapidity than in the corresponding
alternations of social status in a democracy. It is because iron is so
rustable that it is so useful. The factories with big scrap-heaps of
rusting machinery are making the most money. The pyramids are the most
enduring structures raised by the hand of man, but they have not
sheltered so many people in their forty centuries as our skyscrapers
that are already rusting.

We have to carry on this eternal conflict against rust because oxygen is
the most ubiquitous of the elements and iron can only escape its ardent
embraces by hiding away in the center of the earth. The united elements,
known to the chemist as iron oxide and to the outside world as rust, are
among the commonest of compounds and their colors, yellow and red like
the Spanish flag, are displayed on every mountainside. From the time of
Tubal Cain man has ceaselessly labored to divorce these elements and,
having once separated them, to keep them apart so that the iron may be
retained in his service. But here, as usual, man is fighting against
nature and his gains, as always, are only temporary. Sooner or later his
vigilance is circumvented and the metal that he has extricated by the
fiery furnace returns to its natural affinity. The flint arrowheads, the
bronze spearpoints, the gold ornaments, the wooden idols of prehistoric
man are still to be seen in our museums, but his earliest steel swords
have long since crumbled into dust.

Every year the blast furnaces of the world release 72,000,000 tons of
iron from its oxides and every year a large part, said to be a quarter
of that amount, reverts to its primeval forms. If so, then man after
five thousand years of metallurgical industry has barely got three years
ahead of nature, and should he cease his efforts for a generation there