The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-06-09
Our Heritage of the Mechanical Arts

Our Heritage of the Mechanical Arts.
| The most important event in the
history of the mechanical arts, the
discovery of iron, is without a GER
tain date. Iron is mentioned in the
Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bible,
and the Had; it appears in the
fragments of Sanchoniaton; it is de-
lineated upon the Egyptian monu-
ments assigned to Thothmes ILL.,;
nevertheless, the date of it's dis
covery is problem which is not
yet satisfactorily solved. The Sc
cret of smelling iron ores and con-
verting them into metal was GER
tainly discovered by somebody,
somewhere, and at some remote
time, but we know not where,
when, nor by whom. When this
discovery did occur, at all events
when it became publicly known and
commonly put into practice, it
must have exercised as profound
an influence upon the ancient world
as that of gunpowder and firearms
has had upon the modern. Iron
not only armed the people who dis
covered it with superior offensive
weapons; it enabled them to build
ralnparts of stone, to pierce the
rocks tor silver, copper, and lead,
and to tabricate nearly all those
implements, tools, and devices
which distinguish the mechanical
arts. The name chalybo, for iron,
points to Chalybia, and of damas,
for steel, to Damas, or as we write
it, Damascus. In the vicinity of
both of these districts, very ancient
iron mines have been discovered;
and in the former district, at Aya-
zinn, Mr.. Ramsay found rock
sepulchers, guarded by gigantic
carved lions, and large chapel, all
carved out of the solid rock, which
could only have been executed with
steel tools. Col. Leake found at
Nacolaeia, in the Sangarius valley,
a royal tomb, in the form of
temple, carved in the solid rock,
with a Phrygian inscription by
Attes, dedicated to Midas; while,
near by, were the remains of city,
which, from its great extent, is
supposed to have been the capital
of the Sangarians, or Maryandians.
In lineage assigned to the Judges
: of. Israebpabout the twelfth century
) B. c. Jabin, the King of Canaan, or
PhRnicia, who dwelt at Hazor
? about sixty miles southwest of
Damascus, is said to have pos
sessed nine numbered chariots of
iron. Judges iv, 81 "Can one
break iron from the North:" Oer.
. XIV. 12) and ~ will break the bar of
Damascus" Amos i, 81 are passages
which were probably written sever
: al centuries before our era, and
may refer to a still more remote
period; while this evidently points
to the vicinity of Damascus as a
well-known iron center.
Could we accept these indications
for certain guide, the advent of
iron, at least so far as the western
world is concerned, might be fixed
at about the twelfth century before
our era. Both iron and steel were
, certainly very scrace in the West at
[ the periods mentioned. Homer,
tenth century, mentions poleaxes,
f shipwrights' tools, plowshares,
sheep-hOOks, and chariot wheels in
} the Troad; yet in Laced@monia, in
: the time of Lycurgus, ninth cen
fury, iron was still SO valuable that
he employed it as a material for
: money. The theory has been adj
, vanced that the Chalybes, Veneti,
. and Dorians were the same people,
r who after being driven out of Asia,
invaded Greece, and with their iron
weapons destroyed that splendid
bronze civilization which is re-
, vealed in the magnificent remains
of Tiryns and Mycen@-a theory
that the pedimented hexastyle
temple, carved in the Sargon relief
at Monasier, goes somewhat to sub
stantiate. Twenty-six centuries
later, Cortes performed a similar
exploit in Mexico. There is adj
mittedly gap of three centuries
both in the literature and archa-
ology of Greece, gap that extends
from the assumed date of the Dor
ian invasion, 1104 B. c. to the Lycur-
gan age. Whatever may have been
- the history of iron and steel during
this interval, these metals only
come into general use during the
Solonic era, when. by their agency
in opening the silver mines of
Laurium, they threw upon the
would those treasures which ex-
: tended and quickened commerce,
r established the mechanical arts,