Christopher Columbus Reports

[Zakuska]

Several tons of worked Olmec Iron have been found...

"See Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America's First Civilization (Thames & Hudson, 2004), 93-94."

http://www.amazon.com/Olmecs-Americas-Civi...s/dp/0500285039

I plan on buying this book on monday... I'll scan the pages.

Here's more about one of the magnetic hematite Olmec artifacts.

http://books.google.com/books?id=He9RaFN8I...q4JdtXGfmwpwG8Y

That would put Ancient Americans working Iron to at least 400BCE.

This also speeks of it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec

Compass

The find of an Olmec hematite artifact, fitted with a sighting mark and found in experiment as fully operational as a compass, has led the American astronomer John Carlson after radiocarbon dating to propose that "the Olmec may have discovered and used the geomagnetic lodestone compass earlier than 1000 BCE".[13] Carlson suggests that the Olmecs may have used such devices for directional orientation of the dwellings of the living and the interments of the dead.

[Sethbag]

Heres a picture of various types of Iron-Ore. Ochre isn't necesarily RED.

Ok, I'm going to respond to multiple of your posts at once.

No, not all of ochre is necessarily red. Nevertheless, the red part is what they were after when they mined it.

If they had the metallic-looking hematite mineral, then that is not the same as having elemental iron. It's not usable as a metal. It's far too brittle. It can be used to make shiny things, and undoubtedly is used for that purpose, but people don't make sharp tools out of hematite and then use them. Ok, so someone back then may have made a crude lodestone compass. Great. That's still not iron tools, iron weapons, steel tools, steel weapons, etc. Zak.

The one article that even discusses dating in the Ohio iron smelter articles you linked, gives multiple dating techniques on multiple samples dating from 1740. The author apparently doesn't feel that that is possible and disregards this evidence, for whatever reasoning he chooses to elucidate in his book, nevertheless, on that site there is no evidence that Lehites built and operated those smelters, and evidence, which the author doesn't believe, that the smelters came from the mid 18th century.

So, you've got ochre being mined for pigments, shiny-looking hematite, and some mid 18th century crude iron smelters in Ohio. Zak, you've got nothing here that supports the idea of Nephites, Lamanites, or Jaredites being able to smelt iron ore and make wrought iron, cast iron, steel, or any other alloy of iron. You're grasping for straws here.

[Zakuska]

Sethbag PMed me and I thought I'd share a little:

As I said in my previous post, a lodestone compass is nice, but it's not metallic iron, nor usefull for edged tools or weapons or anything like that. It's just hematite.

Seems to me that Lehi was lead to the americas by some sort of "compass" device.

Here are the two LDS sources I've seen referencing it:

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/050801steel.html

Note, finally, that the Olmecs did, indeed, work iron. Several tons of worked iron have been discovered.12

12 See Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America's First Civilization (Thames & Hudson, 2004), 93-94.

http://www.fairlds.org/Book_of_Mormon/Stee..._of_Mormon.html

Note, finally, that the Olmecs did, indeed, work iron. Several tons of worked iron have been discovered.12

12 See Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America's First Civilization (Thames & Hudson, 2004), 93-94.

We'll just have to wait for the book pages Im going to scan in.