The lodestone or magnetite is an ore of iron' which sometimes crops out as a rock above the surface of the ground. The accidental bringing of an iron object into the neighborhood of the outcropping stone probably caused the first observation of the attractive power of the rock for the metal, and thus furnished the basis for the legend which Pliny copies from the poet Nicander (who wrote it two centuries before his time), concerning the Shepherd Magnes, who, while guarding his flock on the slopes of Mount Ida, suddenly found the iron ferrule of his staff and the nails of his shoes adhering to a stone; which subsequently became called after him, the "Magnes Stone," or "Magnet." This legend, in various forms, retained its vitality up to comparatively recent times. As masses of magnetite were discovered in various parts of the world, the stories of its attractive power became greatly exaggerated, especially, as I shall hereafter show, during the Middle Ages. In fact, magnetic mountains which would pull the iron nails out of ships, or, later, move the compass needle far astray, did not lose their place among the terrors of the sea until after the seventeenth century had become well advanced.

The phenomena of the lodestone are, however, two-fold. It not only attracts iron objects, but it has polarity, or, in other words, exhibits opposite effects at opposite ends; by reason of which, when in elongated form and supported so as freely to turn, it will place itself nearly in the line of a meridian of the earth-that is, nearly in a north and south direction. This is its directive tendency, or, as William Gilbert called it in 1600, its "verticity," and upon this quality, as is well known, depends the use of the magnetized needle in the mariner's compass.

We may conclude that whoever gained the first knowledge of the attractive power of the lodestone, was also acquainted with iron, if he had an iron object to present

1FeO.F2O, sp. gr. 5.2, contain2 72.41 per cent. of iron. Osborn: Metallurgy of Iron and Steel.

to the stone and in this way perceived its attraction. Iron, however, is never found in a metallic state in nature, except in meteorites. Excluding this infinitesimal supply, the metal is obtained from its ores, by means usually involving the development of intense heat, so that to devise modes of attaining the necessary temperatures, let alone the even more complex mental work of contriving apparatus and processes for separating the metal, requires advanced powers of observation and invention. Hence modern ethnological and geological authorities unite with Lucretius' and other ancient writers in affirming that the Age of Iron has always followed that of brass or bronze. So far, therefore, as establishing the probable time of the discovery of the attractive force of the lodestone is concerned, it is immaterial whether we consider that the phenomenon was first remarked as an effect of outcropping magnetite upon iron brought near to it; or as one exerted by fragments of magnetite in an iron mine upon other fragments of the same substance, or upon extracted iron. In any case, the observation of the fact seems necessarily to have followed the advent of an Iron Age, and therefore may not extend indefinitely back into prehistoric times.

On the other hand, with regard to the directive tendency of the lodestone a different conclusion is reached. To suspend an elongated piece of the stone and see it turn itself in a definite direction; or to do this repeatedly and with different pieces and thus learn that the phenomenon is true of this particular stone and not of other stones, obviously involves no necessary knowledge of its attractive effect on iron. Therefore, if we admit the possibility of sufficient intelligence in the race then living, we may conjecture that an acquaintance with magnetic polarity may have existed among the earliest peoples of which we have any tradition. I shall show hereafter that reason for such conjecture is by no means absent, which if ac

1De Natura Rerum, v.

cepted, places human knowledge of the directive tendency of the lodestone not only far beyond the limits of history, but even suggests the utilization of that knowledge by wandering hordes for their actual guidance over the wildernesses of the earth, at the same extremely remote epoch.

For the present, however, it is necessary to deal with modern civilization and periods within historical times, and therefore, to begin with an inquiry into the familiarity of the western world with magnetic attraction; for whatever the Asiatic people may have known concerning magnetic polarity, there is no trustworthy evidence that the nations of Europe had the slightest acquaintance with it before the twelfth century of our era.

It is especially difficult to determine the positive date when any nation made the transition from the bronze to the iron age, and practically impossible to do so in the cases of people who either inhabited countries where iron does not abound, or who never acquired the art of obtaining it. In such event, the substitution of implements of iron necessarily imported from other countries for the native ones of bronze, to which the population had become accustomed by ages of use, was an exceedingly slow process, retarded by the mental inertia of the times, and often by national pride in home customs and handiwork. Hence arises the seeming anomaly that among people far advanced in civilization, the general use of iron can be recognized only at a comparatively late period in their history; while among barbarians, incomparably below them in intellectual attainments, we find evidence of its employment at immensely earlier periods. In Denmark, for example, the age of iron corresponds to that of the beech tree. Hesiod, writing in 850 B. C., speaks of the time when "men wrought in brass, when iron did not exist;" and Homer, although frequently referring to weapons and implements of bronze, mentions iron but rarely. The Aztecs, at the time of the Conquest, knew nothing of the metal, although their soil was impregnated

with it. The Peruvians, under the same natural conditions, were equally ignorant.'

The traditions of magnetic attraction, however, date from periods far earlier than the days of Nicander. The iron of antiquity was mined chiefly on the islands and coasts of the Ægean Sea, and on Elba and Crete, although some came even from distant Ethiopia. That found on the slopes of Mount Ida or on the Mediterranean islands was famous. Its strange hunger for other iron, which it seized and drew unto itself, was to the superstitious Greek a mystery, concerning which the uninitiated might not even think for fear of the anger of the gods: the anger of Celmis, and Damnamenus and Acmon the irresistible, and later of Azieros, Aziokersa and Aziokersos, whose very names were mystic and dangerous to speak.

In far-off ages, so said the legend, Rhea, the earth goddess of Phrygia, sent to Ida, and thence to Samothrace, in the Ægean, those of her children who were skillful underground, and wise in their knowledge of the ores, and where they lay hidden in the cracks and crevices of the rock. And, because of their skill, these emissaries received the name of "Dactyls"-fingers; for they were “the fingers of Rhea." Some of them went to Crete; but wherever they journeyed (and Samothrace became their main abode), they dug into the earth and brought out the iron ore; and when the people saw them heat this, and melt it and produce the black, hard ringing metal, they believed them to be gods, and their art a mystery.

As a matter of fact the Idean Dactyls seem to have been merely a roving band of Phrygian miners,' who carried

1 Prescott History of the Conquest of Mexico. 1865, i., 139, and works there cited.

Lyell, Sir C. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man. London, 1873, 8.

Rossignol, cit. sup., refers to the Scholiast of Apollonius of Rhodes on the Phoronid, an ancient and fragmentary poem which he considers as old as the works of Hesiod and Homer. This, concerning the Idean Dactyls, says, "they first found in the mountain forests the art of the

ANCIENT IRON WORKERS.

23

their metallurgical knowledge to places where the ore existed, but like knowledge did not; and who taught mining and iron-working to the Hellenes, or to those who occupied the land before them.

Following the Dactyls came the Cabiri, a second and more skillful band of iron-workers, who were indeed more handicraftsmen than miners. Concerning these, all records are most obscure and conflicting, and they are, besides, inextricably entangled with the myths of several nations. Like the Dactyls, the Cabiri came from Phrygia to Samothrace, Lemnos and Imbros. Their cult seems to have attained its greatest vigor, however, at Samothrace, and ultimately to have spread to Macedonia and Phoenicia. It possessed great vitality, since as late as the fourth century of our era it was in a flourishing existence.

The Samothracian Cabiri became combined with the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Heaven, who presided over the mariners; and with the Egyptian PhthaSokari and the Greek Haephaestos; and later with the Corybantes and Curetes, which appear to have been other bands belonging to the same family. Their worship frequently changed form, so that even the mystic recitals of the Orphic hymns relating to it, now ascribed to the false Orpheus or Onomacritus, who lived as late as 514 B. C., are a confused jumble of forgeries, to which even the Christian philosophers are said to have added their quota.

From the various legends and traditions, however, the probable fact appears that the first iron miners of Greece came from Phrygia, which abounded in the metal, and settled in Samothrace. Here they instituted the mysteries which so long afterwards prevailed, and in the beginning, as a proof of their supernatural skill, they exhibited the attractive phenomena of the lodestone through the mystic working of the so-called Samothracian rings.

The first mention of the magnet in the Greek classics is

cunning Vulcan, the black iron, carried it to the fire and produced wonderful work."