These primitive furnaces applied to the reduction of iron-ore, traces of which had been recognised by Morlot, the naturalist, in Austria and Sweden, have lately been discovered in considerable numbers in the canton of Berne by M. Quiquerez, a scientific mining engineer. They consist of cylindrical excavations, of no great depth, dug out on the side of a hill and surmounted by a clay funnel of conical form. Wood-charcoal was the fuel employed for charging the furnaces, for stores of this combustible are always found lying round the ancient smelting works. In an extremely curious memoir, which was published in 1866 by the Jura Society of Emulation, under the title of 'Recherches sur les anciennes Forges du Jura Bernois,' M. Quiquerez summed up the results of his protracted and minute investigations. A few extracts from this valuable work will bring to our knowledge the real construction of the furnaces used by pre-historic man; 400 of these furnaces having been discovered by M. Quiquerez in the district of the Bernese Jura. We will, however, previously mention that M. Quiquerez had represented, or materialised, as it were, the results of his interesting labours, by constructing a model in miniature of a siderurgical establishment belonging to the earliest iron epoch. This curious specimen of workmanship showed the clay-furnace placed against the side of a hill, the heaps of charcoal, the scoriæ, the hut used as a dwelling by the workmen, the furnace-implements--in short, all the details which formed the result of the patient researches of the learned Swiss engineer. M. Quiquerez had prepared this interesting model of the ancient industrial pursuits of man with a view of exhibiting it in the _Exposition Universelle_ of 1867, together with the very substances, productions, and implements which he had found in his explorations in the Jura. But the commission appointed for selecting objects for admission refused to grant him the modest square yard of area which he required for placing his model. How ridiculous it seems! In the immense Champ de Mars in which so many useless and absurd objects perfectly swarmed, one square yard of space was refused for one of the most curious productions which was ever turned out by the skilful hands of any _savant_! The result of this unintelligent refusal was that M. Quiquerez' model did not make its appearance in the _Exposition Universelle_ in the Champ de Mars, and that it was missing from the curious Gallery of the History of Labour, which called forth so much of the attention of the public. For our readers, however, it will not be altogether lost. M. Quiquerez has been good enough to forward to us from Bellerive, where he resides (near Délémont, canton of Basle, Switzerland) a photograph of his curious model of a pre-historic workshop for the preparation of iron. From this photograph we have designed the annexed plate, representing a _primitive furnace for the extraction of iron_.