92 Analyses of Ancient Alloys, 



were employed. The ancient authors who have written on this sub- 

 ject, all agree that brass was used for the manufacture of arms be- 

 fore the discovery of iron. Lucretius says* — 



" Arma antiqua manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt, 

 Et lapides, et item silvarum fragmina rami, 

 Et flammae, atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum 

 Posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta 

 Sed prius aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus." 



Hesiod also informs us that, " In remote ages, the earth was 

 worked by brass, because iron had not been discovered." The 

 Etrurians were acquainted with the use of copper, and appear to have 

 used it for the purposes of agriculture at a very early period, as 

 when the boundaries of their city were marked out, it was done with 

 a ploughshare of bronze.t Numerous other authorities might, if 

 necessary, be quoted in support of the above statements ; but the 

 opening of divers Scandinavian tumuli, of very remote antiquity, in 

 Denmark, fully establishes the accuracy of these accounts. From 

 these barrows have been collected specimens of swords, daggers, 

 knives, and implements of industry, since preserved and arranged 

 in the Museum of Copenhagen, and among them are instruments of 

 flint, resembling in their shapes, our wedges, axes, chisels, hammers, 

 and knives ; which we may infer, from their rude workmanship, as 

 well as from the materials of which they are formed, to have been 

 the first description of edge tools used by mankind for the several 

 purposes for which they were adapted. Specimens of swords, dag- 

 gers, and knives were also found, of which the blades are made of 

 gold, whilst the cutting edges only are of iron. Some of these objects 

 are composed principally of copper with edges of iron ; and in the 

 whole of them, the profuse application of copper and gold, in com- 

 parison with the parsimony evident in the expenditure of iron, seems 

 to prove that at that early, though unknown period, both gold and 

 copper were more plentiful, and less highly valued than iron, among 

 the now-forgotten people who manufactured these implements. | 



Although we have the best evidence for believing that copper and 

 bronze were employed for the purpose of making cutting instruments 

 before the discovery of iron, it would be more difficult to ascertain 

 at what date and among what nation this metal first came into ge- 

 neral use. That it was known at a very early period we learn from 

 various passages in the Books of Moses ; and that it was used in the 

 days of Job (about b. c. 1400) for the manufacture of arms, is 

 evident from the following passage : — *' He shall flee from the iron 

 weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through. § 



It is nevertheless probable that bronze might have been in com- 

 mon use long after the discovery of the harder metal, as the prepa- 



* Lib. i., 1282. t Macrob. Saturn, v., 19. 



X Jacob on the Precious Metals, I, 3. § Job xx,, 21. 



