Monarchs of the cave: metals.

Gold is for the mistress – silver for the maid – Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade. ‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall, ‘But Iron – Cold Iron – is master of them all.’ It is no exaggeration to say that of all the materials in common use none have had a greater influence on our technological development than metals. Their unique combination of ductility and high electrical and thermal conductivity, together with their ready alloying, qualifies them to play a role for which there is no stand-in. Although they were not the first substances to be pressed into service, their use does go back at least 8000 years. The order in which the various metallic elements were discovered was inversely related to the ease with which they form compounds with the non-metals, particularly oxygen. Thus, with the possible exception of meteoric iron, the first metals known to man were probably gold, silver and copper, these being the only three common examples that actually occur as the metallic element. Conversely, there are metals which so tenaciously hold on to oxygen that they were not extracted from their ores until quite recently. One can imagine early man being attracted by the glint of gold nuggets, and he must have been intrigued by their ease of deformation compared with the brittleness of flint and other stones. The major use of gold has been in ornamentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]