BEFORE SOLOMON'S MINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20668, 13 September 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

BEFORE SOLOMON'S MINES.

Startling discoveries in Northern Rhodesia by the Italian scientific expedition led by Commander Gatti, may lead to a rovision of views as to tho time of tho commencement of the Iron Ago. Tho expedition reports the discovery of the site of an ancient iron foundry buried at a depth of 6ft. in an enormous cavern, in strata of tho Palaeolithic Age, hitherto regarded as the earlier Stone Age. Hero many thousands of years ago. somo race superior in intelleet to its fellows, smelted iron by primitive methods resembling those of the Bantu people of to-day. An examination of skeletons discovered tends to show that an early knowledge of smelting came to Africa in bushmen times, somewhere about tho middle period of tho Palaeolithic Ago. It is thought that tho iron foundry may givo somo indication as to tho ago of the Zimbabwe ruins, tho ancient stono strongholds in Rhodesia, which are thought to have been erected by ancient gold-seekers from Arabia, but further discoveries may show that prosaic iron, as well as gold, proved nn attraction to explorers long beforo tho days of King Solomon's mines.