chap. viii.

in what countries and districts iron originates.

p lenty 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 biturges77 (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 eubœa; 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. pliny78 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 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 torinese80, 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 writes81 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 recorded; for it has never been known to rain from the sky gold, silver, lead, tin, or spelter82. 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.