from the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 331 



alluded to above, notices it and nickel as occurring in several early coins, aud 

 in one Irish specimen, a celt, to the amount of 0.34 per cent, (with a trace 

 of nickel). The minute quantities of the Precious Metals were perhaps derived 

 from fragments adhering to old ornaments of bronze, which were afterwards 

 re-melted. It has been supposed that traces of silver found in one or two 

 previous analyses were owing to the lead not having been freed from this metal, 

 and this was probably often the case, but in two instances here (Nos. 1 and 2) 

 it could not have been so, as no lead was present. Arsenic aud antimony have 

 not, I believe, except in one instance, been hitherto noticed in similar alloys,* 

 and existing in such very small quantity, are not easily detected ; but by em- 

 ploying a separate portion of bronze for the purpose, I determined rigidly the 

 question of their presence or absence. The source of these traces found 

 in the alloy is not difficult of explanation. Indications of sulphur (and of carbon, 

 by Mr. Donovan) have been observed in several specimens previously ana- 

 lyzed ; these, and the traces of arsenic and antimony, are interesting, as ren- 

 dering it at least probable that some of the copper used by the ancients was 

 smelted from sulphuret of copper or copper pyrites (probably the chalcitis 

 or misy of Pliny), or other ores of the same class, and that native copper, red 

 oxide of copper, and malachite, did not, as some authors seem to suppose, con- 

 stitute their only sources of the metal. 



The question, from what countries were the copper and tin, employed to 

 such an immense extent by the nations of antiquity, derived, is one of great 

 interest, and has been already treated of, especially with reference to the source 

 of the tin, by several authors of celebrity. They seem generally agreed that the 

 former of these metals was discovered, and extracted at a very early period in 

 several places in the south and east of Europe, and adjoining portion of Asia. 

 At the. period of the Trojan "War, and at the time of the building of Solomon's 

 Temple, the supply of copper must have been most abundant, and the name 

 frequently occurs in the Pentateuch. The art of casting statues of bronze is 

 ascribed by Pausanias to Rhcecus and Theodoras of Samos (about 700 or 800 

 B. C), at which time it must of course have become common, though we have 



* Jahn (Ann. Pharm. 27'338) found 8'22 per cent, of antimony in an ancient weapon from 

 tlie ruined castle of Henneberg. 



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