( 75 ) 



A Chemical Examination of the Metals and Alloys known to 

 the Ancients. I. History. II. Analyses of Ancient Alloys, 

 A. Coins struck prior to the Christian Era. B. Analyses of 

 Ancient Arms and Cutting Instruments. C. Table of Mean 

 Composition of the Specimens analysed. D. Deductions. 

 By J. Arthur Phillips, Esq., F.C.S.* 



I. History. 



Among the arts cultivated by mankind in the infancy of 

 the world, metallurgy appears to have held a very prominent 

 situation ; for we read that Tubal Cain was an instructor of 

 every artificer in brass and iron,t and consequently these, 

 together with their uses, must have been well known to the 

 antediluvians. 



It is also probable that they were not the only metals in 

 use at this remote period ; for the extraction of iron from its 

 ores, of itself indicates great metallurgical skill and expe- 

 rience, as from the refractory nature of the materials em- 

 ployed, a very intense heat and skilful manipulation must 

 have been necessary to its production. From these consi- 

 derations, we may infer that this metal could not have been 

 discovered until the arts had attained a great degree of per- 

 fection, and long after the discovery of some others requiring 

 less complicated apparatus and a lower temperature for 

 their reduction. It would be quite impossible, after the 

 lapse of so many ages, to trace the exact order in which the 

 metals became known ; but it appears natural to suppose 

 that those which are found in a native state, were the first 

 to attract the attention and exercise the ingenuity of man- 

 kind ; and consequently, that gold, silver, and copper, were 

 among the first with which the ancients became acquainted-! 

 This, however, is but conjectural, as in the first mention of 

 silver, Abraham is described as weighing unto Ephron, four 

 hundred shekels of silver current money with the merchant, § 



* The above is an abstract of a memoir published in the valuable Quarterly 

 Journal of the Chemical Society of London, for October 1851. 



t Gen. iv. 22. 



X It is true that iron is sometimes found in the native state, as large masses 

 of meteoric origin have been occasionally met with. These, however, occur 

 but seldom, and in quantities far too small to have supplied this metal for the 

 uses of the arts. § Gen. xxiii. 16. 



