The processes employed for the primitive smelting of copper ores were, to a large extent, of the same nature as the crude operations practised generally for the extraction of metals in remote ages and by primitive races, as recorded from time to time by travellers and explorers. The furnace-hearth was a hole in the ground, working usually on oxide ores with charcoal or wood as fuel. This primitive furnace was later developed, by the addition of walls for enclosing the charge, until the “shaft furnace” provided with an air blast of some kind was attained. The sulphide ores presented rather more difficulty in their treatment, but the production of metallic copper from sulphide materials by super-oxidation, in a process akin to the bessemerising of to-day, was developed in Japan centuries ago, and has been described by Professor Gowland. It would appear that during the middle ages, the art of reducing copper ores to metal on a comparatively large scale was practised simultaneously in Britain and in Central Europe; first by primitive methods similar to those indicated above, developing later by successive improvements into the employment of small blast furnaces. By about 1700, however, the methods diverged, and it is interesting to note that the different styles of working then introduced have persisted, until recent years, as the methods typical of these two parts of the world. In Wales, where the well-known furnace coal was one of the characteristics of the locality, as it still remains to-day, the smelting processes developed along the lines of reverberatory practice, for which such fuel is eminently suited, and this resulted in the establishing of the representative Welsh process. On the other hand, the enormous forests of Central Europe furnished wood suitable for the making of charcoal, a type of fuel which necessitates close proximity with the furnace charge, so that in these localities smelting was carried out in the shaft furnace, which gradually developed into the small blast furnace. At the present time, the solid fuel suitable for reverberatory practice is only obtainable in very small quantities in Central Europe, and the characteristic method employed there for copper smelting is that in which small blast furnaces are used, except that charcoal has been largely replaced by coke as the fuel.