86 J. A. Phillips, Esq., on the Metals and 



in question. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, describes the trans- 

 formation of copper into aurichalcum as being effected by 

 means of a drug,* and not by the addition of another metal, 

 from which we may infer he was unacquainted with the me- 

 tallic nature of the material employed, although from his 

 calling it a drug, he was perhaps aware of its medicinal pro- 

 perties. 



A similar description of the manufacture of brass is given 

 by Primasius, Bishop of Andrumetum, in Africa, in the sixth 

 century, and by Isidorus, Bishop of Seville, in the seventh. 

 Agricola, who wrote in the sixteenth century, was also evi- 

 dently ignorant that cadmia contained zinc, of which we 

 have no authentic account until we find it mentioned by 

 Paracelsus ; and from which it is evident, that although the 

 manufacture of zinc brass is of great antiquity, the extraction 

 of the metal itself is comparatively a modern discovery. 



Iron, the last of the six metals known to the ancients, was 

 not, in the earliest times, very extensively employed, as the 

 primitive heroes are described as being armed with weapons 

 of brass. 



Pisander is represented as attacking Agamemnon with a 

 pole-axe, of which Homer says : — 



" An olive's cloudy grain the handle made, 



Distinct with studs, and brazen was the blade." f 



Plutarch informs us that when Cimon, the son of Miltiades, 

 conveyed the bones of Theseus from the island of Scyros to 

 Athens, he found interred with him a bronze sword and a 

 spear head of the same metal. % 



Although generally used, however, brass was not univer- 

 sally employed for the manufacture of arms, as the celebrated 

 robber, Periphetes, slain by Theseus, was named Korunetes 

 {Ko^mriTni) from using an iron club, and Areithous is described 

 by the author of the Iliad as ; — § 



" Great Areithous, known from shore to shore, 

 By the huge knotted iron mace he bore ; 

 No lance he shook, nor bent the twanging bow ; 

 But broke with this the battle of the foe." 



* Amb. in Apoc, ci. t Hiad, v., 612, Pope's Trans. | Theseo. 



§ Iliad, v., 136, Pope's Trans. 



