The Difficulty of Iron and Steel Among the Nephites.
The Book of Mormon repeatedly affirms the Nephite knowledge of the fusion of metals, and their knowledge and use of both iron and steel. As many writers on American Antiquities deny the knowledge and use of these metals by the ancient Americans, their alleged existence in the Book of Mormon is generally regarded as a capital objection to that record. Not all the influential writers, however, are on that side of the question.
"There is no evidence," says Bancroft, "that the use of iron was known except the extreme difficulty of clearing forests and carving stone with implements of stone and soft copper."[[34]]
Referring to some of the stones in the ruins of Peruvian buildings, Prescott remarks:
Many of these stones were of vast size; some of them being full thirty-eight feet long, by eighteen broad, and six feet thick. We are filled with astonishment when we consider that these enormous masses were hewn from their native bed and fashioned into shape by a people ignorant of the use of iron.[[35]]
But why could not the argument of Wilkinson be followed when confronted with a similar problem respecting the ancient Egyptian works in stone? He allowed that the achievements of that ancient people in quarrying and shaping huge blocks of stone to be an evidence of their knowledge and use of iron, but that its tendency to decomposition and oxidation prevented any specimens of it from being preserved.[[36]]
Later, notwithstanding Prescott's disagreement with the argument, some of the best authorities sustained the conclusions of Wilkinson. George Rawlinson, for instance, in his "History of Ancient Egypt," says:
In metals Egypt was deficient. * * * * Copper, iron, and lead do, however, exist in portions of the eastern desert, and one iron mine shows signs of having been anciently worked.
"Then," he remarks, "the metal is found in form of specular and red iron ore. Still, none of these metals seem to have been obtained by the Egyptians from their own land in any considerable quantity. In a foot note he says this mine lies in the eastern desert between the Nile and Red Sea, at a place called Hammami."[[37]] Later, he says:
It has been much questioned whether iron was employed at all by the Egyptians until the time of the Greek conquest. The weapons and implements and ornaments of iron which have been found in the ancient cities are so few, while those of bronze are so numerous, and the date of the few iron objects discovered is so uncertain that there is strong temptation to embrace the simple theory that iron was first introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies. Difficulties, however, stand in the way of a complete adoption of this view. A fragment of a thin plate of iron was found by Col. Vyse imbedded in the masonry of the great pyramid.[[38]]