ts that a growing number of
archeologists are disposed to-day to consider the Negro as the originator
of the art of smelting iron. Gabriel de Mortillet (1883) declared Negroes
the only iron users among primitive people. Some would, therefore, argue
that the Negro learned it from other folk, but Andree declares that the
Negro developed his own "Iron Kingdom." Schweinfurth, Von Luschan, Boaz,
and others incline to the belief that the Negroes invented the smelting of
iron and passed it on to the Egyptians and to modern Europe.

Boaz says, "It seems likely that at a time when the European was still
satisfied with rude stone tools, the African had invented or adopted the
art of smelting iron. Consider for a moment what this invention has meant
for the advance of the human race. As long as the hammer, knife, saw,
drill, the spade, and the hoe had to be chipped out of stone, or had to be
made of shell or hard wood, effective industrial work was not impossible,
but difficult. A great progress was made when copper found in large
nuggets was hammered out into tools and later on shaped by melting, and
when bronze was introduced; but the true advancement of industrial life
did not begin until the hard iron was discovered. It seems not unlikely
that the people who made the marvelous discovery of reducing iron ores by
smelting were the African Negroes. Neither ancient Europe, nor ancient
western Asia, nor ancient China knew the iron, and everything points to
its introduction from Africa. At the time of the great African discoveries
toward the end of the past century, the trade of the blacksmith was found
all over Africa, from north to south and from east to west. With his
simple bellows and a charcoal fire he reduced the ore that is found in
many parts of the continent and forged implements of great usefulness and
beauty."[44]

Torday has argued recently, "I feel convinced by certain arguments that
seem to prove to my satisfaction that we are indebted to the Negro for the
very keystone of our modern civilization and that we owe him the discovery
of iron. That iron could be discovered by accident in Africa seems beyond
doubt: if this is so in other parts of the world, I am not competent to
say. I will only remind you that Schweinfurth and Petherick record the
fact that in the northern part of East Africa smelting furnaces are worked
without artificial air current and, on the other hand, Stuhlmann and
Kollmann found near Victoria Nyanz