Abstract
LONG before human art acquired the knowledge of metal-making, prehistoric man had learned to make fire of the dry stems and branches of trees; in the charred fragments of half-burnt wood we recognise a form of carbon, the first simple elementary body produced by man from the complex natural bodies with which he was surrounded. In the knowledge of the use of fire, then, was the first dawn of art, particularly of that art which deals with the reduction of simple bodies from compound minerals. To convert metallic compounds into metallic elements is the domain of the metallurgist, and the means by which this is effected constitute the basis of metallurgic art. Carbon was thus a necessity to metallurgy—with the knowledge of fire the world emerged from the stone age. From those early times down to the present day, no fusion has been effected without using carbon, which in the form of wood, coal, or charcoal, has been the substance invariably used by the metallurgist for the production of heat, and to enable him to decompose and to smelt metal-bearing materials.
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A New Process in Metallurgy1. Nature 19, 410–411 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/019410e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/019410e0