THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

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IRON. 597
by the late Dr Flight^ affords information about one Indian
manufacture in which zinc is largely used. This is the wellknown
Bidri ware of Beder in Hyderabad. His analysis
suggests that the metal is not a specially prepared alloy, but
may " result from the reduction of an ore of zinc containing
the other metals (copper, lead, gold, and iron)-."
It is therefore more probable that the art of alloying
copper with tin was the result of a lucky accident which had
blended the two metals, than that it was the outcome of a
deliberate desire to make copper harder, and consequent on
experiments made to that end. Thus some man of the Copper
Age found that this mixed material gave better results than
the ordinary copper which he was in the habit of using.
To suppose that primitive man who was only acquainted
with copper and gold should have conceived deliberately the
design of hardening copper by mixing another is
ingredient,
to
read the ideas of our modern scientific world into the life of
men who had not yet emerged from savagery. On the other
hand there is no difficulty in supposing that in one of the
areas where both copper and tin are found these two metals
were found occasionally intermixed, as seems to have been the
case with copper and zinc in Hyderabad.
It is therefore not unreasonable to suggest that as the art
of alloying C(jpper with ziuc and tin was in the one case
'
Ihid. ]i.
8"2."). The name hidri, ziiu;, is j)r()bably notbint,' more tluin the
place-name, ]^eder in Hyderabad, wliere the metal was found or manufactured.
The proportions were: m two objects, I. a box, and II. a bottle:
Zinc, by ditTerence
Copper ......
I.
Lead
(n.ld
Iron ......
-
Another j^'ood ilhislration of tlie prineijile that discoveries in metallurt,'y
are dur to tlie natural juxta|)osition of two ditTci'i'Ut elciufnts, is atTonled by
(piicksiis-er.
Callias, an Atlu-nian. who worked silver mines at his own exjunse
in tlie I.auriiun district, found a shinini^' sand of thr colour of scarh't or
cochineal [kokko';). He ordci-cd it to l)e concctcd, thinkin;,' from its shining;
appi-araiK-'e tliat it contained ^'old. Tlioiij^'b disap]iointed in this, he yet hit
ui)on a method of jirciiarin^' ciniialiar from this suiistance (ii.c. 10.")), which was
tlistinctly iiuicksiivcr ore. IJoeckh, I'uli. /'.Vd;;. ji]).
CiL".) :i() (Imi^'. transh).
598 IRON,
certainly, and in the other probably, the outcome of chance, so
too the discovery of the use of copper itself was due to a similar
cause.
The same almost certainly holds true of iron.
The discovery of that metal according to the latest views of
the metallurgists
" doubtless arose either from pieces of rich
iron ore becoming accidentally embedded in the domestic fire,
the burning embers of which would easily reduce them to the
metallic state, or it
may be from primitive man, having already
obtained the metal copper from certain stones, experimenting
with others in the same manner in his rude furnace, when,
if these consisted of iron ore, metallic iron ore would be
produced ^"
But the metallurgists have overlooked another possibility,
which is not merely hypothetical, but can be proved to have
taken place, and which does not involve any reduction of the
iron ores by man. Unlike copper, iron is hardly ever found
native except in the case of meteoric iron, which has been
smelted by Nature. Hence it has been supposed that mankind
first became acquainted with the use of iron through meteorites.
Accordingly Lenormant suggested that aiBrjpo^ is coimucted
'
with Latin sidus, and that it meant originally sidereal' iron.
Others again have supposed that the ' self-smelted mass
iron (p. 294) given as a prize by Achilles was a mass of
meteoric iron.
Tempting as this suggestion we must
is,
bear in mind that meteoric stones have in
many parts of
the world, both ancient and modern, been regai'ded with awe
and veneration. Thus in the Greek lands and those bordering
on them, meteoric stones were among the earliest objects
of veneration. They were termed /BairuXoi, were usually
dedicated to Cronus or to Zeus (as we shall see later on), and
were anointed with oil b\' devout persons, such as the Su])erstitious
Man iii the C/iardcters of Theophrastus. Tt is not
easy to su])pose that peopli'
who invested meteoi'ites with
such sanctity would eomniit so sacrilegious an act as to use
them foi' inetal.
Gowliind,