"Him Tubal nam'd, the Vulcan of old times
The sword and falchion their invention claim;
And the first smith was the first murderer's son."

Nor must we forget, that the useful arts, and among them the art of working metals, were lost to the generality of mankind, in consequence of that universal calamity. Gold, silver and copper seem to be the metals of which the knowledge and uses were earliest recovered after that period; owing, no doubt, to their being oftener found on the surface of the earth, or in the beds of streams—to their more frequent occurrence in the metallic state, and to the greater ease with which they are separated from their ores. Copper, though greatly inferior to iron, yet possesses considerable tenacity, and sufficient hardness to furnish a substitute in the construction of cutting instruments, and either pure, or alloyed with tin to increase its hardness, constituted the materials of which were formed the swords, hatchets, and artist's tools of many ancient nations. The arms and tools of the American nations were similarly made, and by means of this awkward substitute, the Mexicans and Peruvians made considerable advances in manufactures and the arts—greater perhaps than any other people unacquainted with the use of iron. The inconvenience experienced by these nations from their ignorance of this metal, and the awkward expedients to which in consequence they had recourse, afford an important lesson in teaching us what estimate to make of the value of a substance, which, its very requisiteness to every common purpose of life so familiarizes us with, as to cause us daily to pass by with little or no notice. The evils which we are taught would inevitably follow its loss, make a deeper impression of its importance, than all the advantages, manifold though they be, which in heedless enjoyment, we are continually deriving from its possession. With no better substitute for iron tools in cutting stone, than the sharp edged fragments of flint,—without carriages, or machines of any kind,—how tedious and laborious must have been the work of separating from the quarry, of shaping, of transporting to a distance, and elevating to a proper height, the huge blocks of stone with which the Mexicans and Peruvians contrived to erect their temples and other public edifices!—structures that have commanded the admiration of more modern nations. What toil and what time must have been expended in the operation of dividing a single block, by means of continued rubbing of one rock against another! What pains and what efforts of ingenuity must it have cost the artizans of Montezuma, without the aid of nails, to form the ceilings of his palace, by an arrangement of the planks so artificial, as mutually to sustain each other! With what eagerness the Peruvian would have accepted nails of iron, to fasten together the pieces of timber he employed in building, and have laid aside as worthless, the cords of hemp his necessities compelled him to apply to that purpose! What an acquisition would have been even a common needle, in the place of the thorn, to which, in the fashioning of their cotton garments, they were obliged to have recourse!

Iron differs from the metals we have mentioned as earliest known, by its occurring rarely in a metallic state, and being then most difficult of fusion: its uses were in consequence a later discovery. The methods, besides, of disengaging it from the ores in which it is usually found in nature, are far from being obvious, consisting of various processes,—such as pounding, roasting, smelting in contact with charcoal, to render it fusible; requiring too, additional heatings and hammerings to render it malleable, and a still more complicated process to convert it into steel. Yet it was in use, as has been remarked, in very remote ages: Moses, in Deuteronomy, makes frequent mention of it. He speaks of mines of iron, and alludes to furnaces for melting it; and from the circumstance of swords, knives, axes, and tools for cutting stone, constructed of that metal, being mentioned by the same authority, we are entitled to conclude that the art of tempering and converting it into steel was also known. The mode of tempering it was certainly known to the Greeks as early as the days of Homer; for that poet borrows from the art some of his similes. Thus in the Oddyssey:

And as, when arm'rers temper in the ford
The keen-edged pole-axe, or the shining sword,
The red hot metal hisses in the lake,
So in his eye-ball hiss'd the plunging stake.

It is by its conversion into steel, that we are furnished with a material retentive of an edge, and adapted to cutting the hardest substances, and are enabled to fabricate that most important class of implements, edge-tools, all of which, from the ponderous pit saw to the finest lancet, are formed in part with this metal.

It was not, however, until very late in modern times, that we may be said to have acquired absolute dominion over this individual of the mineral kingdom, so as to be able at command, to press it into service, whatever may be its locality, in relation to the surface of the earth or its interior. For, before the improvements made in the steam-engine by the discoveries of Watts, we were limited in the power of availing ourselves of the known existence of iron, however abundant in any particular spot, by the necessity of the concurrence of a stream of water in the same location with that of the metal, as a means of impelling the machinery for producing the blast requisite in the operation of smelting. Since those improvements, steam power may be employed wherever the ore and fuel is found in sufficient quantities to authorize the erection of furnaces; and the manufacture of iron has in consequence, especially in Great Britain, risen into great importance. The annual produce of smelted ore in that kingdom, is estimated now to be about seven hundred thousand tons.

We cannot avoid suggesting here, to the owners and workers of coal property in Virginia, the propriety of investigating the strata through which they necessarily pass in their mining operations, with reference to the discovery of argillaceous iron-stone, with more minuteness than hitherto they have done—if indeed, (which we are inclined to doubt,) their attention has been in any degree directed to such examination. It is from this species of iron-stone, accompanying coal-strata, that Great Britain derives at least nineteen twentieths of the metals which she possesses in such abundance, and to which, in connection with its convenient location in the immediate vicinity of the fuel necessary in its reduction, she owes her towering eminence as a manufacturing country. The coal formation of Virginia contains the same clays, shales, sandstones and slates, and these are characterized by the same vegetable impressions that mark the series in other countries. And may we not reasonably ask, why should we hastily conclude this usual concomitant of the coal strata in England, Scotland, France and Germany, to be wanting here; or rather, why may not we hope to find it equally abundant in our own coal district. We are induced to urge this suggestion the more, from the circumstance, that this species of ore presents in its external characters, so little indicative of its metallic nature or chemical composition, that but for its greater weight, it might well escape the notice of an inexperienced or unobservant eye, unless arrested by some such hope as we have been induced to hold out. Even in England, where from its great abundance it might have been expected to be generally better known, instances have occurred in some districts, of its being wastefully misapplied, through ignorance, to the common purpose of mending the roads. The immense benefits that would result from success attending a research directed to this object, as well to the city of Richmond, as to a few fortunate individuals, are too obvious to require comment. It is sufficient to remark, that it would prove an abundant source of individual wealth, and would, in connection with her other great advantages and increasing facilities of transportation, be the means of elevating the metropolis of Virginia to an exalted rank in the class of large cities, and enable her to vie in importance with the proudest seat of manufactures, or the most extensive emporium of commerce.

It was our intention, as our title announces, to have passed rapidly on, and glanced at the history, uses, and national importance of coal, and some of the most valuable of the other mineral substances, as well as to have pointed out in a short series of remarks, some of the advantages to be derived from the cultivation and pursuit of mineralogical and geological inquiries in connection with this subject; but we have loitered on the way, and the contracting limits of our paper admonish us to hasten to a close. We may at another time, if leisure permit, and if on reflection, we deem our endeavors at all likely to attract attention to subjects which have too long been almost universally neglected, again resume, after our own fashion, a subject which under better management, could not fail to prove interesting as well as instructive.

GAMMA.

Henrico, April 28th, 1835.