l material substances, to the service of man in
trades and appliances without end. One kind of iron is adapted for
breastplates, another serves as a defence against shot, another protects
against swords and curved blades (commonly called scimitars), another is
used for making swords, another for horseshoes. From iron are made nails,
hinges, bolts, saws, keys, grids, doors, folding-doors, spades, rods,
pitchforks, hooks, barbs, tridents, pots, tripods, anvils, hammers, wedges,
chains, hand-cuffs, fetters, hoes, mattocks, sickles, baskets, shovels,
harrows, planes, rakes, ploughshares, forks, pans, dishes, ladles, spoons,
spits, knives, daggers, swords, axes, darts, javelins, lances, spears,
anchors, and much ship's gear. Besides these, balls, darts, pikes,
breastplates, helmets, cuirasses, horseshoes, greaves, wire, strings of
musical instruments, chairs, portcullises, bows, catapults, and (pests of
human kind) cannon, muskets, and cannon-balls, with endless instruments
unknown to the Latins: which things I have rehearsed in order that it may
be understood how great is the use of iron, which surpasses a hundred times
that of all the other metals; and is day by day being wrought by
metal-workers whose stithies are found in almost every village. For this is
the foremost of metals, subserving many and the greatest needs of man, and
abounds in the earth above all other metals, and is predominant. Wherefore
those Chemists are fools[76] who think that nature's will is to perfect all
metals into gold; she might as well be making ready to change all stones to
diamonds, since diamond surpasses all in splendour and hardness, because
gold excels in splendour, gravity, and density, being invincible against
all deterioration. Iron as dug up is therefore, like iron that has been
smelted, a metal, differing a little indeed from the primary homogenic
terrestrial body, owing to the metallick humour it has imbibed; yet not so
alien as that it will not, after the manner of refined matter, admit
largely of the magnetick forces, and may be associated with that prepotent
form belonging to the earth, and yield to it a due submission.

* * * * * {25}

CHAP. VIII.

In what countries and districts iron
_originates._

Plenty of iron mines exist everywhere, both those of old time recorded in
early ages by the most ancient writers, and the new and modern ones. The
earliest and most important seem to me to be those