Primitive Man

by Louis Figuier

By increasing the size of the apparatus used, far more considerable results were of course obtained. In Dalecarlia (Sweden), M. Morlot found smelting-houses, so to speak, in which the original hole, of which we have just been speaking, is surrounded with stones so as to form a sort of circular receptacle. In this rough stone crucible layers of charcoal and iron-ore were placed in succession. After having burnt for some hours, the heap was searched over and the spongy iron was found mixed with the ashes at the bottom of the furnace.

The slowness of the operation and the inconsiderable metallic result induced them to increase the size of the stone receptacle. They first gave to it a depth of 7 feet and then of 13 feet, and, at the same time, coated the walls of it with clay. They thus had at their disposal a kind of vast circular crucible, in which they placed successive layers of iron-ore and wood or charcoal.

In this altogether elementary arrangement no use was made, as it seems, of the bellows. This amounts to stating that the primitive method of smelting iron was not, as is commonly thought, an adaptation of the Catalan furnace. This latter process, which, even in the present time, is made use of in the Pyrenean smelting works, does not date back further than the times of the Roman empire. It is based on the continual action of the bellows; whilst in the pre-historic furnaces this instrument, we will again repeat, was never employed.

These primitive furnaces applied to the reduction of iron-ore, traces of which had been recognised by Morlot, the naturalist, in Austria and Sweden, have lately been discovered in considerable numbers in the canton of Berne by M. Quiquerez, a scientific mining engineer. They consist of cylindrical excavations, of no great depth, dug out on the side of a hill and surmounted by a clay funnel of conical form. Wood-charcoal was the fuel employed for charging the furnaces, for stores of this combustible are always found lying round the ancient smelting works.

In an extremely curious memoir, which was published in 1866 by the Jura Society of Emulation, under the title of 'Recherches sur les anciennes Forges du Jura Bernois,' M. Quiquerez summed up the results of his protracted and minute investigations. A few extracts from this valuable work will bring to our knowledge the real construction of the furnaces used by pre-historic man; 400 of these furnaces having been discovered by M. Quiquerez in the district of the Bernese Jura.

We will, however, previously mention that M. Quiquerez had represented, or materialised, as it were, the results of his interesting labours, by constructing a model in miniature of a siderurgical establishment belonging to the earliest iron epoch. This curious specimen of workmanship showed the clay-furnace placed against the side of a hill, the heaps of charcoal, the scoriæ, the hut used as a dwelling by the workmen, the furnace-implements—in short, all the details which formed the result of the patient researches of the learned Swiss engineer.

M. Quiquerez had prepared this interesting model of the ancient industrial pursuits of man with a view of exhibiting it in the Exposition Universelle of 1867, together with the very substances, productions, and implements which he had found in his explorations in the Jura. But the commission appointed for selecting objects for admission refused to grant him the modest square yard of area which he required for placing his model. How ridiculous it seems! In the immense Champ de Mars in which so many useless and absurd objects perfectly swarmed, one square yard of space was refused for one of the most curious productions which was ever turned out by the skilful hands of any savant!

The result of this unintelligent refusal was that M. Quiquerez' model did not make its appearance in the Exposition Universelle in the Champ de Mars, and that it was missing from the curious Gallery of the History of Labour, which called forth so much of the attention of the public. For our readers, however, it will not be altogether lost. M. Quiquerez has been good enough to forward to us from Bellerive, where he resides (near Délémont, canton of Basle, Switzerland) a photograph of his curious model of a pre-historic workshop for the preparation of iron. From this photograph we have designed the annexed plate, representing a primitive furnace for the extraction of iron.