G18 Dr. J. H. Gladdone [Feb. 11, 



represented in the main a copper age." The reasons he assigns in 

 his letter, as well as in his published works, are fairly conclusive, and 

 the recent exploratiocs, and the analyses of Dr. Percy, Prof. Roberts- 

 Austen, and others, have shown that in the early period of the 

 Mycenaean age copper without tin was employed for numberless pur- 

 poses ; but as time advanced, bronze came into use. At Hissarlik, 

 in the lowest and second city, have been found a gilded knife-blade, 

 needles and pins, of practically pure copper ; while in the third and 

 sixth cities occur battle-axes of copper containing 3 to 8 per cent, of 

 tin. In the very old town of Tiryns, the palace apparently had its 

 walls covered witli sheets of cojDper ; much lead was also found there. 

 At Mycenai, the Achaian capital* the metals in use were gold, silver, 

 copper, bronze ai^d lead ; copper jugs and caldrons are common, 

 and great leaden jars for storiug grain ; also elegant bronze tools 

 and cutlery ; mirrors, razors and swords. In the tombs the bodies 

 are laden with jewels, largely ornaments of gold, with a much smaller 

 amount of silver. 



Some of these objects illustrate the poems of the time ; thus, in 

 the Odyssey we find Nestor makinoj a vow to AthenaR : " So the heifer 

 came from the field ; . . . the smith came holding in his hands his 

 tools, the means of his craft, anvil and hammer, and well-made pin- 

 cers wherewith he wrought the gold. Athenee, too, came to receive 

 the sicrifice. And the old knight Nestor gave gold, and the other 

 fashioned it skilfully, and gilded therewith the horns of the heifer, 

 that the goddess might be glad at the sight of her fair offering." 

 Now at Mycenai there was found the model of an ox-head in silver, 

 with its horns gilded, and between them a rosette of gold, not 

 directly attached to the silver but to a thin copper plate. In Vapliio, 

 a town near Sparta, of a somewhat later period, tombs were found 

 containing many beautiful objects in silver, gold and bronze. Espe- 

 cially notew^orthy are two golden cups embossed with figures of bulls 

 and men ; in the one case it is a spirited hunt in the woods, in the 

 other a peaceful scene on the meadows. Iron, in Mycenai, appears 

 only as a precious metal of which finger-rings are formed. KtWo?, 

 which has frequently been translated "steel," was almost certainly 

 a blue mineral, lapis lazuli, or a carbonate of copper. 



In the remains of a Greek colony in Cyprus, belonging to the 

 end of the Mycenaean period, which is now being explored by the 

 British Museum, iron plays a much more important part. At 

 Athens also large iron swords, which belonged to the ninth or tenth 

 century B.C., have been found in an old cemetery. 



After this came the intellectual period of Grec'an history. 

 Aristotle must be mentioned in any account of the science of the 

 day ; and he it is who gives us the first description of the metal 

 mercury, and also how to produce the alloy which we call brass, 

 by heating together copper and calamine, the carbonate of zinc. 

 Metallic zinc, how^ever, was not known for many centuries after- 

 wards. 



