It was thought of much importance by the ancients to select for the quenching of steel water possessing certain occult qualities, whose existence was only to be detected by experiment. By these the river of the Chalybeans was thought to be distinguished,[881] as well as the waters near Como, at Calatayud and Tarragona in Spain. Water has, likewise, been prepared, by a variety of infusions, for communicating a finer temper and greater hardness to steel, an example of which is mentioned in the history of the Duke Cosmo, who invented, according to Vasari,[882] a liquid wherein were hardened the tools with which Francesco del Tadda was enabled to cut a fountain-basin, and several other articles, from a block of the hardest porphyry. Nothing, however, was more common than this operation among the ancients, both Greeks and Egyptians, by whom porphyry was cut into every variety of form, and invested with the highest polish.[883] ----- Footnote 881: Plin. xxxiv. 41. Footnote 882: Vit. de Pitt. Pref. p. 12. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, ii. 78. Footnote 883: Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, t. i. p. 176, sqq. ----- The best steel appears to have been obtained from the Seres, from Parthia, and from India,[884] where, when polished, it assumed the bright appearance of silver, and probably like that of Damascus contained a small proportion of this metal. That which came from Sinope and the Chalybes served for the manufacture of ordinary tools; the Laconian[885] was wrought into files, augers, chisels, and the other implements of stone-cutters; the Lydian stood in high estimation with the sword-cutlers, and the manufacturers of razors and surgical instruments.[886] The locks and keys[887] of the ancients, if we may judge from the specimens found at Pompeii, were of a somewhat rude construction, though probably manufactured of the best iron. ----- Footnote 884: Plin. xxxiv. 41. Footnote 885: Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 222. Cf. Herod. vii. 61. i. 164. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 620. Nub. 179. Footnote 886: Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 222. 28, sqq. Steph. de Urb. v. Λακεδαίμων. p. 505, c. seq. Footnote 887: Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 155. 200, seq. Poll. i. 77. Eurip. Orest. 1577. Æsch. Sept. 378. Schol. Thucyd. l. ii. t. v. p. 371. Iliad. δ. 132. μ. 121. ----- The workshop and tools of the smith bore the closest possible resemblance to those of the present day; the bellows[888] consisting of thin boards connected by flaps of cow-hide, and having a snout of iron, the anvil mounted on a high block, the hammer, the tongs, the vice, which require no particular description. ----- Footnote 888: Herod. i. 68. Athen. iii. 71. xiv. 57. Sch. Aristoph. Ach. 853. Poll. x. 45. -----