Professor Lauth,[18] moreover, interprets the Coptic word for iron, ⲂⲈⲚⲒⲠⲈ, as “the stone of heaven” (Stein des Himmels) which implies that in Egypt also its meteoric origin was acknowledged. Among the Eskimos[19] of modern times meteoric iron has been employed for making knives. Where an excess of nickel is present, the meteoric iron cannot well be forged,[20] but Dana seems to be right in saying, as a general rule it is perfectly malleable. Some, however, are of opinion that during the time that bronze was employed for cutting instruments, iron was also in use for |6| other purposes.[21] At the first introduction of iron the two metals were, no doubt, in use together, but we can hardly suppose them to have been introduced simultaneously; and if they had been, the questions arise, whence did they come? and how are we to account for the one not having sooner superseded the other for cutting purposes? Another argument that has been employed in favour of iron having been the first metal used, is that bronze is a mixed metal requiring a knowledge of the art of smelting both copper and tin, the latter being only produced in few districts, and generally having to be brought from far, while certain of the ores of iron are of easy access and readily reducible,[22] and meteoric iron is also found in the metallic state and often adapted for immediate use. The answer to this is, first, that all historical evidence is against the use of iron previously to copper or bronze; and, secondly, that even in Eastern Africa, where, above all other places, the conditions for the development of the manufacture of iron seem most favourable, we have no evidence of the knowledge of that metal having preceded that of bronze; but, on the contrary, we find in Egypt, a country often brought in contact with these iron-producing districts, little if any trace of iron before the twelfth dynasty,[23] and of its use even then the evidence is only pictorial, whereas the copper mines at Maghara are said to date back to the second dynasty, some eight hundred years earlier. Agatharchides,[24] moreover, relates that in his time, _circa_ B.C. 100, there were found buried in the ancient gold mines of Egypt the bronze chisels (λατομίδες χαλκᾶι) of the old miners, and he accounts for their being of that metal by the fact that at the period when the mines were originally worked the use of iron was entirely unknown. Much of the early working in granite may have been effected by flint tools. Admiral Tremlett has found that flakes of jasper readily cut the granite of Brittany.[25]