The old Egyptians, according to Plutarch,[338] held iron to be the ὀστέον Τυφῶνος, or bone of Set; whereas the σιδηρίτις λίθος, or magnet, was that of his foe-god Horus, degraded to Charon in Greece and Rome. This siderite was known to the Hellenes in its religious aspect as Ἡράκλεια λίθος or Ἡράκλειον, either from Heraclea-town or from Hercules (Pliny, xxxvi. 25). Siderite or loadstone, termed ‘Magnet’ from its supposed discoverer, was also entitled ‘live iron,’ and its wounds were supposed to be more deadly than those of the common ore. The Nile-dwellers had not far to go for iron, which abounds in the well-known Wady Hammámát, one of the earliest centres of Egyptian mining; and, as Mr. Piazzi Smyth showed, it accumulates everywhere in the fissures of the flaky limestone:[339] it is produced in Ethiopia (the Sudan and Abyssinia); and in Midian, where the old Kemites opened the copper mines, it appears in the shape of black sand and large masses of titaniferous[340] and other ores. The monuments (Karnak Table, &c.) specify, amongst objects of tribute, iron from the lands of the Thuhi[341] (‘the fair people’), the Rutennu (Syrians and Assyrians), and the Asi (or rebels generally?); from these countries it was exported in the ore and in bricks and pigs. The tribute-tables of Thut-mes III. (B.C. 1600) mention:— One beautiful iron armour of the hostile king. One beautiful iron armour of the King of Megiddo. ? lbs. weight, two suits of iron armour from Naharayn. Iron suits of armour (taken by the warriors), and Five iron storm-caps (?). [Heading: _HEBREW IRON-AGE._] Mr. Francis Galton[342] first discovered in the ancient copper-diggings of the so-called ‘Sinaitic’ peninsula, a blackish mass, not unlike iron-slag, which he conjectured to date before Moses’ days. A score of years afterwards (early 1873), Mr. Hartland[343] examined the junction of the Wadys Kemeh, Mukattab, and Maghárah, and found the iron-ore imperfectly extracted: assays and analyses of the slags that lay in heaps about the ruined works produced fifty-three per cent. of metal. He determined that the mines at Serábit El-Khádim had been constructed on the principle of the Catalan (or rather the Corsican) forge;[344] and he discovered near them a temple and barracks for the soldier-guards.[345]