Note 457 — Chapter VI · [263] (continued 2)
Reading edition
Ante, p. 155.
Thus Lucretius:
“Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, Quo facilis magis est natura, et copia major. Ære solum terræ tractabant, æreque belli Miscebant fluctus.” De Rerum Natura, lib. 5.
According to Carli, the Chinese were acquainted with iron 3000 years before Christ. (Lettres Améric., tom. ii. p. 63.) Sir J. G. Wilkinson, in an elaborate inquiry into its first appearance among the people of Europe and Western Asia, finds no traces of it earlier than the sixteenth century before the Christian era. (Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. pp. 241-246.) The origin of the most useful arts is lost in darkness. Their very utility is one cause of this, from the rapidity with which they are diffused among distant nations. Another cause is, that in the first ages of the discovery men are more occupied with availing themselves of it than with recording its history; until time turns history into fiction. Instances are familiar to every school-boy.