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Hokitika Guardian, 30 June 1933, Page 4

In a lecture on “Research and Development” Sir Harold Carpenter observed that if the question were asked, what product of the physical universe had contrmuted most to the material comfort of the human race and the industrial progress of the world, it could be answered with confidence that metals were entitled to the first place. Man’s most striking achievements depended wholly or to a large extent on tliei use of metals. The outstanding discovery wdiich had made our present civilisation possible was the smelting of a metal from a stone. Its importance came in. the same category as the first method of producing fire a'uti—cialljy. Go’d would have 'been one of the first metals discovered, and it was noteworthy that when Brazil was discovered the oborigines were making fish-hooks of gold, as was done to-day by natives in the interior of Colombia. The discovery of copper would be later than that of gold, for the pieces of native copper found on the earth were invariably covered by a coating of purplish green or greenish black which concealed their metallic lustre. As early as 3000 B.C. the Egyptians were skilled in the smelting and casting of copper, but the earliest authentic bronzes dated from about IGOO B.C. The next important discovery was the production of iron, wdiich did not occur native owing to its liability to oxidize, and this was undoubtedly the most portentous event in the history of human industry. Iron had had mor,» to do with the progress of civilisation than all the other metals put together. Through the kindness of Sir Flinders Petrie in supplying articles, Dr. Robertson and he had been able to infer that about 1.200 B.C. the Egyptians knew' how to make iron absorb carbon bv heating in charcoal, ancT about 900 8.0. they discovered/ how to harden it by quenching in water. From those discoveries the more extensive use of iron in the form of steel began. Braes was made at the beginning of the Christian era, but the next discovery of prime imrartance was that of “cast iron,” first made in the fourteenth century.