> Sparkly hematite mineral was used as a flux by copper smelters. Its distinctive appearance may have helped to attract attention from ancient miners and prospectors.
Every once in a while I pull up some Wikipedia article with idle curiosity of "If I were transported back in time, could I usefully help this get invented?"
One result of this is a helpless appreciation for how complicated it can be to even identify what kind of substance is present without a staggeringly complex dependency-tree of identifying other chemicals, assaying tests, and the economic surplus to use reagents for analysis.
Things could have been very different if iron ore was hard to distinguish.
Every once in a while I pull up some Wikipedia article with idle curiosity of "If I were transported back in time, could I usefully help this get invented?"
One result of this is a helpless appreciation for how complicated it can be to even identify what kind of substance is present without a staggeringly complex dependency-tree of identifying other chemicals, assaying tests, and the economic surplus to use reagents for analysis.
Things could have been very different if iron ore was hard to distinguish.