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 of Asia. For in those
countries which abound naturally in iron, governments and the arts
flourished exceedingly, and things needful for the use of man were
discovered and sought after. It is recorded to have been found about
Andria, in the region of the Chalybes near the river Thermodon in Pontus;
in the mountains of Palestine which face Arabia; in Carmania: in Africa
there was a mine of iron in the Isle of Meroe; in Europe in the hills of
Britain, as Strabo writes; in Hither Spain, in Cantabria. Among the
Petrocorii and Cubi Biturges[77] (peoples of Gaul), there were worksteads
in which iron used to be wrought. In greater Germany near Luna, as recorded
by Ptolemy; Gothinian iron is mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus; Noric iron is
celebrated in the verses of poets; and Cretan, and that of Euboea; many
other iron mines were passed over by these writers or unknown to them; and
yet they were neither poor nor scanty, but most extensive. Pliny[78] says
that Hither Spain and all the district from the Pyrenees is ferruginous,
and on the part of maritime Cantabria washed by the Ocean (says the same
writer) there is (incredible to relate) a precipitously high mountain
wholly composed of this material. The most ancient mines were of iron
rather than of gold, silver, copper or lead; since mainly this was sought
because of the demand; and also because in every district and soil they
were easy to find, not so deep-lying, and less beset by difficulties. If,
however, I were to enumerate modern iron workings, and those of this age
and over Europe only, I should have to write a large and bulky volume, and
sheets of paper would run short quicker than the iron, and yet for one
sheet they could furnish a thousand worksteads. For amongst minerals, no
material is so ample; all metals, and all stones distinct from iron, are
outdone by ferric and ferruginous matter. For you will not readily find any
region, and scarcely any country district over the whole of Europe (if you
search at all deeply), that does not either produce a rich and abundant
vein of iron or some soil containing or slightly charged with ferruginous
stuff; and that this is {26} true any expert in the arts of metals and
chemistry will easily find. Beside that which has ferruginous nature, and
the metallick lode, there is another ferric substance which does not yield
the metal in this way because its thin humour is burnt out by fierce fires,
and it is changed into an iron slag like that which is separated from the
metal in the first furnaces. And of this kind is all clay and argillaceous
earth, such as that which apparently forms a large part of the whole of our
island of Britain: all of which, if subjected very vehemently to intense
heat, exhibits a ferric and metallick body, or passes into ferric vitreous
matter, as can be easily seen in buildings in bricks baked from clay,
which, when placed next the fires in the open kilns (which our folk call
_clamps_)[79] and burned, present an iron vitrification, black at the other
end. Moreover all those earths as prepared are drawn by the magnet, and
like iron are attracted by it. So perpetual and ample is the iron offspring
of the terrestrial globe. Georgius Agricola says that almost all
mountainous regions are full of its ores, while as we know a rich iron lode
is frequently dug in the open country and plains over nearly the whole of
England and Ireland; in no other wise than as, says he, iron is dug out of
the meadows at the town of Saga in pits driven to a two-foot depth. Nor are
the West Indies without their iron lodes, as writers tell us; but the
Spaniards, intent upon gold, neglect the toilsome work of iron-founding,
and do not search for lodes and mines abounding in iron. It is probable
that nature and the globe of the earth are not able to hide, and are
evermore bringing to the light of day, a great mass of inborn matter, and
are not invariably obstructed by the settling of mixtures and
efflorescences at the earth's surface. It is not only in the common mother
(the terrestrial globe) that iron is produced, but sometimes also in the
air from the earth's exhalations, in the highest clouds. It rained iron in
Lucania, the year in which M. Crassus was slain. The tale is told, too,
that a mass of iron, like slag, fell from the air in the Nethorian forest,
near Grina, and they narrate that the mass was many pounds in weight; so
that it could neither be conveyed to that place, on account of its weight,
nor be brought away by cart, the place being without roads. This happened
before the civil war waged between the rival dukes in Saxony. A similar
story, too, comes to us from Avicenna. It once rained iron in the
Torinese[80], in various places (Julius Scaliger telling us that he had a
piece of it in his house), about three years before that province was taken
over by the king. In the year 1510 in the country bordering on the river
Abdua (as Cardan writes[81] in his book _De Rerum Varietate_) there fell
from the sky 1200 stones, one weighing 120 pounds, another 30 or 40 pounds,
of a rusty iron colour and remarkably hard. These occurrences being rare
are regarded as portents, like the showers of earth and stones mentioned in
Roman history. But that it ever rained other metals is not {27} recorded;
for it has never been known to rain from the sky gold, silver, lead, tin,
or spelter[82]. Copper, however, has been at some time noticed to fall from
the sky, and this is not very unlike iron; and in fact cloud-born iron of
this sort, or copper, are seen to be imperfectly metallick, incapable of
being cast in any way, or wrought with facility. For the earth hath of her
store plenty of iron in her highlands, and the globe contains the ferric
and magnetick element in rich abundance. The exhalations forcibly derived
from such material may well become concreted in the upper air by the help
of more powerful causes, and hence some monstrous progeny of iron be
begotten.
* * * * *