[403] Polynesian Researches (Rev. William Ellis).
[404] Researches into the Early History of Mankind, p. 167.
[405] Unless greatly mistaken, I have seen iron tools made of hæmatite near the old Gongo Socco gold-mines of Minas Geraes, in the Brazil. Worked hæmatite is also mentioned in Cyprus by General Palma (di Cesnola). See chap. ix.
[406] From Nature (Sept. 30, 1875); quoted by Mr. Day (pp. 217–19).
[407] Flint Chips, by Edmund T. Stevens, p. 553 (London: Bell & Daldy, 1870).
[408] The ‘plummet’ is figured (No. cxxxii.) in the American Naturalist (vol. vi. p. 643).
[409] The people of Camarones River, Bight of Biafra, work up old cask and bale hoops into very creditable edge-tools and weapons, hoes, knives, and Swords (Rev. G. Grenfell, Proc. Roy. Geolog. Soc. Oct. 1882).
[410] The origin of the modern process is still debated. Agricola (nat. 1494, ob. 1555) notices both malleable and cast iron. Dr. Percy (p. 578) quotes from Mr. M. A. Lower (Contributions to Literature, &c. 1854) that Burwash Church, Sussex, contains a cast-iron slab of the fourteenth century with ornamental cross and inscription in relief. The same authority declares that iron cannon were first cast at Buxted (Buckstead in Sussex) by Philip Hoge or Hogge in 1543 (35 Henry VIII.); and that his successor, Thomas Johnson, made ordnance pieces for the Duke of Cumberland weighing 6,000 lbs.
[411] Dr. Percy (pp. 764 et seq.) notices the three processes of making steel (iron containing carbon in certain proportions): 1. The addition of carbon to malleable iron; 2. The partial decarburisation of cast iron; and 3. The addition of malleable iron to cast iron.
[412] I borrow from O Muata Cazembe (Kazembe, the King) a rude sketch (p. 38) of one of the better kinds of iron-smelting furnaces used by the extensive Maráve race dwelling north of the Zambeze (River of Fish), which Europeans persist in miswriting Zambesi. The bellows, it will be remarked, are almost of European shape; but this peculiarity may be attributed to the artist.