Metallic iron is of a grey color, and presents the metallic lustre vividly when polished.  It is very ductile, malleable, and tenacious.  It is very hard at common temperatures, but soft and yielding at a red heat.

In dry and cold air, iron does not oxidize, but when the air is dry and moist, it oxidizes rapidly.  This likewise takes place with great rapidity when the metal is heated to redness.  When submitted to a white heat iron burns with brilliant scintillations.

Protoxide of Iron (FeO).—­This oxide does not occur pure in nature, but in union with the peroxide of iron and other substances.  It presents the form of a black powder, and has some metallic lustre, is brittle, and fuses at a high temperature to a vitreous looking mass.  It is attracted by the magnet, and of course is susceptible of becoming magnetic itself.  It forms with water a hydrate, but this passes so rapidly into a state of higher oxidation, that it is difficult to keep it in the pure state.

Magnetic Oxide of Iron (FeO + Fe^{2}O^{3}).—­This peculiar oxide is of a dark color, and is magnetic, so that tacks or small nails adhere to it when brought in contact with it.  It is the variety of the oxide termed “loadstone.”  It is found frequently crystallized in octahedrons in Scandinavia and other places.  Magnetic oxide of iron is produced when red-hot iron is hammered.

Sesquioxide of Iron (Fe^{2}O^{3}).—­This oxide is found native in great abundance as red hematite and specular iron, crystallized in the rhombic form.  In the crystalline state it is of a blackish-grey color, and possessed of the metallic lustre.  When powdered, it forms a brownish-red mass.  When artificially prepared, it presents the appearance of a blood-red powder.  It is not magnetic, and has less affinity for acids than the protoxide.  Its hydrate is found native as brown hematite.

By exposing the peroxide of iron to the oxidation flame, it is not acted upon, but in the reduction flame it becomes reduced to the magnetic oxide.

The oxides of iron are dissolved by borax in the oxidation flame to a clear dark-yellow or dark-red bead, which appears lighter while cooling, and yellowish when cold.  In the presence of a very small quantity of iron, the bead appears colorless when cold.  If the iron is increased, the bead is opaque while cooling, and of a dirty dark-yellow color when cold.  In the reduction flame, and fused upon platinum wire, the bead appears dark green (FeO + Fe^{2}O^{3}).  By the addition of some tin, and fused upon charcoal, the bead appears bluish-green, or not unlike that of sulphate of iron.

Microcosmic salt dissolves the oxides of iron in the oxidation flame to a clear bead, which, by the addition of a considerable quantity of iron, becomes of an orange color while hot, but gets lighter while cooling, presenting finally a greenish hue, and gradually becoming lighter, till, when cold, it is colorless.  If the iron is increased, the hot bead presents a dark red color, but while cooling a brownish-red, which changes to a dirty-green, and, when cold, to a brownish-red color.  The decrease of the color during the transition from the hot to the cold state is still greater in the bead formed by the microcosmic salt.