The presence of the metals, and particularly iron, must have become, in various ways, too obvious to allow the art of smelting the ores to have remained long undiscovered. The detection of virgin fragments, or the accidental effect of fires on the more fusible ores, accounts at once for the strange fictions which existed among the ancients on this subject, especially that of the accidental conflagration of a forest, and the consequent fluxion of some of the metal, from ores lying exposed on, or near the surface. It is a natural conjecture, that in a little time after the deluge, and long before the earth could have been peopled by the posterity of Noah, a large part of it must have become covered with wood. Its removal from many spots would, therefore, be indispensable. Now, the most obvious method of clearing any space from wood is the setting it on fire: and as in the most mineral countries there are veins of metallic ores lying contiguous to the surface of the earth, these being fused while the woods growing over them were burning, might have suggested the first idea of the process of smelting. To adopt a poet’s notion— “Thus powerful gold first raised its lofty head, And brass, and silver, and ignoble lead: When shady woods on lofty mountains grown, Felt scorching fires, whether from thunder thrown, Or else by men’s design the flames arose— Whatever ’t was that gave these flames their birth, Which burnt the towering trees and scorched the earth; Hot streams of silver, gold, and lead, and brass, As nature gave a hollow, proper place, Descended down, and formed a glittering mass.” Nor is this merely a poetic fiction: it is sustained by the testimony of many ancient historians, who speak of silver and other metals being melted out of the earth, during the burning of the woods on the lofty Alps and Pyrenees. A similar circumstance is said to have happened at Croatia, not two centuries ago. A large mass of mixed metal, composed of copper, iron, tin, and silver, was fluxed during the conflagration of a wood which was accidentally set on fire. The structure and use of the bellows may be traced to a very remote period. Rosellini exhibits it, as it was employed in ancient Thebes. Men appear heating a vessel over a charcoal fire, to each side of which is applied a pair of bellows worked by the feet, each operator standing upon and pressing them alternately, while he pulls up the exhausted skin by a string which he holds in his hand. In one representation, the man has left the bellows, which are raised as if full of air, and imply a knowledge of the valve. The common bellows, made of two boards joined together by a piece of leather, was known very early to the Greeks. How serviceable this machine would be in the practice of the arts will be at once perceptible.