Analyses of Ancient Alloys. 97 



D. 



Deductions. 



We learn from the foregoing analyses that the metals entering 

 into the composition of the brass of the earliest ages were copper, 

 tin, and lead, although the latter seldom occurs in any considerable 

 quantity, except in the oldest specimens, and in many even of these, 

 particularly in the early Macedonian coins, it is entirely wanting. 

 The iron, cobalt, and nickel, together with traces of sulphur, which 

 sometime occur, are evidently too small in quantity to have been in- 

 tentionally added to the mixture, and consequently their presence 

 must be rather ascribed to the localities from which the ancients 

 drew their supply of ores, and the imperfect methods employed for 

 their reduction, than to any design on the part of the artists. The 

 cutting instruments which have been examined, are uniformly com- 

 posed of copper and tin, with the occasional admixture of a small 

 quantity of lead, which was probably added for the purpose of com- 

 municating a certain degree of toughness to the alloy, and it is also 

 remarkable that the proportion of tin to that of copper, both in the 

 celts and sword-blades, is very nearly as one to ten. 



Zinc first makes its appearance a short time previous to the 

 Christian era, and is continued in all the subsequent coins, although 

 occasionally associated with lead and tin, until it almost entirely 

 disappears in the small brass of the period of the Thirty Tyrants, 

 when its place is supplied by a quantity of silver, varying from 0*76 

 to nearly 8 per cent., and which may perhaps have been intentionally 

 added for the purpose of increasing the value of the metal. 



In speaking of these coins, Pinkerton remarks : — " It may be 

 proper to observe, before leaving this part of my subject, that the 

 metal used in the Parts of the Assarion, or in the small brass coins, 

 is, as may be supposed, very little attended to by the ancients. In 

 those of the first emperors, yellow brass is sometimes employed, but 

 it is always of a refuse, or bad kind ; as in the Semis of Nero, for 

 instance, Genio Avgvsti. But copper is the general metal used in 

 parts of the As, from the earliest times down to the latest ; and if 

 sometimes brass be employed, it is never such as appears in the 

 Sestertii and Dupondiarii, which is very fine and beautiful ; but 

 only the refuse. Yellow brass of the right sort seems to have to- 

 tally ceased in the Roman coinage, with the Sestertius, under Gal- 

 lienus ; though a few small coins of very bad metal, of that hue 

 appear so late as Julian II.''* 



On referring to the table of analyses, we shall, however, perceive, 

 that although the results obtained seem to confirm the assertions 

 made relative to yellow brass, in the above quotation, yet that in no 



* Vol. i., 126. 

 VOL. LII. NO. cm. — JANUARY 1852. G 



