The nature of fuel was determined by the supply of the country. That of Egypt probably consisted of cattle-chips, a material still used by the Fellahs. A later allusion to this article is found in the legend of ‘Wieland Smith’: he mixes iron-filings with the meal eaten by his geese, carefully collects the droppings, and out of them forges a blade which cuts a wool-flock or cleaves a man to the belt without turning edge. I conclude this chapter with the following table,[425] printed by Mr. Day at the end of his ‘High Antiquity of Iron and Steel.’ It gives at one view the languages, the characters, the phonetic values, the English equivalents, and the oldest known dates of the metals to which he refers. I differ from him in sundry points, and these I have taken the liberty to point out in italics. GENERAL TABLE OF TERMS. +--------------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------+------------------+ | LANGUAGE | | | | | +------------+-------------+ CHARACTERS | PHONETIC VALUE | ENGLISH | OLDEST KNOWN | | NAME | FAMILY | | | EQUIVALENT | DATE OF | +------------+-------------+-------------+----------------+---------------+------------------+ | | |[Hieroglyphs]| Ba. | Earth, | | | | | | | Metal. | | | | | | | | 2200 | | | Hamitic, |[Hieroglyphs]| Ba. | Iron. | to | | Egyptian | with | | | | 2300 | |Hieroglyphs.| Semitic |[Hieroglyphs]| Ba’a. | Iron, | B.C. | | | Infusion. | | | Earth. | | | | | | | | | | | |[Hieroglyphs]| Ba’aenpe. | Iron. | | | | | | | | (_B.C. 4500?_) | | | |[Hieroglyphs]| Bet. | Iron. | | +------------+-------------+-------------+----------------+---------------+------------------+ | Akkadian. | | [Cuneiform] | Hurud. | Iron. |{Oldest Monuments,| +------------+ +-------------+----------------+---------------+{ at least | | | | | | |{ 2000 B.C. | | Assyrian. | | [Cuneiform] | Eru. | Iron. |{ (_B.C. 4000?_) | +------------+ Semitic. +-------------+----------------+---------------+------------------+