Without in any way disputing the occasional use of iron among the ancient Egyptians, nor the interpretation of the colours red and blue on the tomb of Rameses III. as being intended to represent blades of bronze and iron or steel respectively, I may venture to suggest that the round blue bar,[22] against which butchers are represented as sharpening their knives in some of the pictures in the sepulchres of Thebes, may have been too hastily regarded as a _steel_ instead of as a whetstone of a blue colour. The existence of a _steel_ for the purpose of sharpening seems to imply not only the knowledge of the preparation of the metal and its subsequent hardening, but also of files or of other tools to produce the peculiar striated surface to which the sharpening property of a _steel_ is due. Had such tools been known, it seems almost impossible that no trace of them should have come down to our times. Moreover, if used for sharpening bronze knives, a steel such as at present used would sooner become clogged and unfit for use than if employed for sharpening steel knives. Lepsius[23] has observed that the pictures of the old Empire do not afford an example of arms painted in blue, the metal of weapons being always painted in red or bright brown. Iron was but little used under the old Empire; copper was employed in its stead where the hardness of iron was not indispensable. However this may be, it seems admitted on all hands that the use of iron in Egypt in early times was much restricted, probably from some religious motive. May not this have arisen from the first iron there known having been, as it appears to have been in some other countries, of meteoric origin? The Coptic name for iron, =ⲂⲈⲚⲒⲠⲈ= which has been interpreted by Professor Lauth[24] as “the Stone of Heaven,” strongly favours such a view. The resemblance of this term to =ⲂⲀⲀ-Ⲛ-ⲠⲈ=, the _baa_ of heaven, or celestial iron, has also been pointed out by M. Chabas,[25] who, however, is inclined to consider that steel was so called on account of its reflecting the colour of the sky. If the iron in use among the early Egyptians were meteoric, and its celestial origin acknowledged, both its rarity and its restricted use would be accounted for. The term “bone of Typhon,” as applied to iron, is given by Plutarch on the authority of Manetho, who wrote in the days of the first Ptolemy. It appears to be used only in contrast to the name “bone of Horus,” which, according to the same author, was applied to the loadstone, and it seems difficult to admit any great antiquity for the appellation, or to connect it with a period when iron was at all rare, or its use restricted.