The Iron Age mineral

Safety pins and skyscrapers, scissors and steamships, automobiles and airplanes - none of these things could be made without the mineral called iron.

Iron is a metal, like copper and tin and bronze. But iron is much harder and tougher. It is the best kind of metal for making tools and things that need lots of strength.

There is iron almost everywhere in the earth's crust, but it almost always locked inside other minerals. Minerals that contain iron are called iron ores. When these ores are heated, the iron flows out as a thick liquid. When the iron cools, it is a hard, dull-looking black metal.

Iron has always been an important metal since people first began using it, about four thousand years ago. It made better, longer-lasting tools and weapons than either stone or bronze. The use of iron brought the Bronze Age to an end. When people began making things out of iron, it was the start of the Iron Age.

Many things, such as fire hydrants, fancy fences, and parts of automobile engines are still made from iron. But much of the iron now taken from the earth is mixed with other minerals to make an even harder, tougher metal called steel.

People have known for a long time how to meake steel, but it was always very expensive. It was only a little more than a hundred years ago that we learned how to make lots of steel cheaply. So many things are now made out of steel - such as safety pins, scissors, skyscrapers, and automobiles - that it is sometimes said
that we live in the Steel Age