SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 215 



fer to an earth which conferred a yellow color on copper. Sulphate of 

 zinc had a place in the pharmacopoeia before its metallic base was known. 

 The metal was discovered by that brilliant absurdity, Paracelsus, in the 

 sixteenth century. 



Bronze, on the contrary, has always been recognized as an alloy, being 

 made by the fusing together of copper and tin in suitable proportions. 

 It is found in those countries which possess both of these metals, and 

 also in those ancient lands to which the Phoenicians penetrated. The 

 Malay Islands and Cornwall furnished the tin of antiquity and that of 

 to-day. Australia has also supplied it largely of late. The Icassiteros 

 (tin) of the Greeks gave its name to Cornwall and Scilly, thekassiterides 

 of Herodotus. 1 It was the Jcastera of the Sanscrit, kasdir of the Arabs. 

 The Javanese tinah, England tin, Swedish tenn, and Icelandic den mark 

 the limits in either direction of the great traders of the earliest period 

 of history. A bar of tin has been recovered from the Swiss lacustrine 

 piles of Estavayer, molds for hatchets have been found at Morges, and 

 remains of bronze foundries have been uncovered in the Canton of 

 Vaud. 2 



Some of the ancient bronzes of England, Ireland, Scotland, and South 

 America have notable proportions or traces of iron and of lead, and some 

 of them have both of these metals in their composition. In the Ro- 

 man bronze coins of Pompey, Hadrian, and Probus, zinc, iron, lead, and 

 silver are found. One coin of Tacitus is of copper and iron. These are 

 probably accidental impurities rather than intentional. 



The lacustrine researches in the Swiss lakes have given rise to the 

 classification of copper, tin, lead, and zinc as the principal ingredients 

 of bronze, and silver, iron, antimony, nickel, and cobalt as accidental, 

 and, it may almost be said, unsuspected. The Helvetian bronzes were 

 destitute of lead, and the presence of zinc appears accidental. The use 

 of calamine was common in the Levant, and lead was added to the bronze 

 in notable quantities. In the bronze of the Swiss lakes the copper va- 

 ried from G7 to 95 per cent., and the tin from 3 to 20 per cent (Desor). 

 Sir John Lubbock remarks that lead and zinc are not found in the 

 bronzes of the true bronze age. 3 



The iron of early ages, as well as that made by the native workmen 

 of Asia and Africa at the presold time, was obtained by a means analo- 

 gous to that of the Catalan process. The fragments of rich iron ore are 

 distributed through the mass of charcoal in the furnace, and by means 

 of the bellows the fire is urged until the metal runs into a viscid ball, 

 which is hammered to expel the dross, and the steel obtained by the 

 single operation is purified and shaped by successive heatings and ham- 

 merings. An excellent quality is obtained, and native weapons were 

 shown at the Centennial from India, Soudan, Angola, Mozambique, 



■Herodotus, iii, 115. 



2 Elis6eEedus, Smithsonian Report, 1801, p. :r>7. 



3 Sir John Lubbock's Introduction to SvenNilson's "Stone Age," page xli. 



