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Rh iron was, however, well known to the Egyptians, who employed it in the manufacture of swords, knives, axes, and stone-chisels, both as malleable iron and as steel. Steel was also known to the Chinese as far back as 2220 B.C., and they were acquainted with the methods of tempering it. The good quality of Chinese steel caused it to be highly prized by Western nations. The earliest people to smelt iron are supposed to have been the Chalybes, a nation inhabiting the neighbourhood of the Black Sea; it is from them that the ancient name for steel—chalybs—is derived, and also our word “chalybeate.”

Mercury has long been known, but there is no evidence that the ancient Egyptians were aware of its existence, or it would probably have been mentioned by Herodotus. It was familiar to Aristotle, and its mode of manufacture from cinnabar is described by Theophrastus (320 B.C.), who terms it “liquid silver.” Processes of amalgamation were known to Pliny, who notes the readiness with which mercury dissolves gold. Pliny appears to distinguish the native metal found in Spain, which he terms argentum vivum (quicksilver), from that obtained by sublimation or distillation from cinnabar, which he calls hydrargyrum, from which we get the chemical symbol for mercury Hg.

A considerable number of metallic compounds were known to the ancients, and were employed