The discovery of the properties of _iron_, and the making of _iron tools_, must have been among the earliest of important discoveries and inventions. We can scarcely conceive the possibility of making much of anything else, without the use of iron tools. Indeed, an iron _hammer_ must have been very much needed to make the _first_ iron hammer with. A _stone_ probably served as a substitute. How could the “_gopher wood_” for the Ark have been gotten out without an axe? It seems to me an axe, or a miracle, was indispensable. Corresponding with the prime necessity for iron, we find at least one very early notice of it. Tubal-Cain was “an instructor of every artificer in _brass_ and _iron_” (Genesis iv: 22). Tubal-Cain was the seventh in descent from Adam; and his birth was about one thousand years before the flood. _After_ the flood, frequent mention is made of _iron_, and _instruments_ made of iron. Thus “instrument of iron” at Numbers xxxv: 16; “bedstead of iron” at Deuteronomy iii: 11; “the iron furnace” at Deuteronomy iv: 20, and “iron tool” at Deuteronomy xxvii: 5. At Deuteronomy xix: 5, very distinct mention of “the ax to cut down the tree” is made; and also at Deuteronomy viii: 9, the promised land is described as “a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.” From the somewhat frequent mention of brass in connection with iron, it is not improbable that brass--perhaps what we now call copper--was used by the ancients for some of the same purposes as iron. _Transportation_--the removal of person and goods from place to place--would be an early _object_, if not a _necessity_, with man. By his natural powers of locomotion, and without much assistance from discovery and invention, he could move himself about with considerable facility; and even, could carry small burthens with him. But very soon he would wish to lessen the labor, while he might, at the same time, extend, and expedite the business. For this object, wheel-carriages, and water-crafts--wagons and boats--are the most important inventions. The use of the wheel and axle has been so long known, that it is difficult, without reflection, to estimate it at its true value. The oldest recorded allusion to the wheel and axle is the mention of a “chariot” (Genesis xli: 43). This was in Egypt, upon the occasion of Joseph being made governor by Pharaoh. It was about twenty-five hundred years after the creation of Adam. That the chariot then mentioned was a wheel-carriage drawn by animals is sufficiently evidenced by the mention of chariot _wheels_ (Exodus xiv: 25), and the mention of chariots in connection with _horses_ in the same chapter, verses 9 and 23. So much, at present, for land transportation.