Man first discovered by observation or accident that certain stones were melted or softened by fire, and that the product could be hammered and shaped. They learned by experience that the melting could be done more effectually when the fuel and the ore were mixed and enclosed by a wall of stone; that the fire and heat could be alone started and maintained by blowing air into the fuel--and they constructed a rude bellows for this purpose. Finding that the melted metal sank through the mass of consumed fuel, they constructed a stone hearth on which to receive it. Thus were the first crude furnace and hearth invented. As to gold, silver and lead, they doubtless were found first in their native state and mixed with other ores and were hammered into the desired shapes with the hardest stone implements. That copper and tin combined would make bronze was a more complex proceeding and probably followed instead of preceding, as has sometimes been alleged, the making of iron tools. That bronze relics were found apparently of anterior manufacture to any made of iron, was doubtless due to the destruction of the iron by that great consumer--oxygen. What was very anciently called “brass” was no doubt gold-coloured copper; for what is modernly known as brass was not made until after the discovery of zinc in the 16th century and its combination with copper. Among the “lost arts” re-discovered in later ages are those which supplied the earliest cities with ornamented vessels of gold and copper, swords of steel that bent and sprung like whalebones, castings that had known no tool to shape their contour and embellishments, and monuments and tablets of steel and brass which excite the wonder and admiration of the best “artificers in brass and iron” of the present day. To understand and appreciate the advancements that have been made in metallurgy in the nineteenth century, it is necessary to know, in outline at least, what before had been developed. The earliest form of a smelting furnace of historic days, such as used by the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, and probably by the Hindoos and other ancient peoples, and still used in Asia, is thus described by Dr. Ure: