348 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



nations ; and copper seems to have been in no repute, but for its use 

 in making brass. 



Parkhurst supposes copper to be called necheshet, from the resem- 

 blance of its color to that of serpents, (nechesh) and remarks that 

 Moses made the serpent, which he was commanded to set up, of 

 copper, Numb. xxi. 9 > where the expression is remarkable iviosh 

 mesheh nechesh necheshtt. So gold is called zeheb from its splendor, 

 and silver keseph, from its pale color. And as man, no doubt, was 

 acquainted with animals before he was with minerals (Comp. Gen. 

 ii. 19. 20, with ch. iv. 22), it seems highly probable, as this ingenious 

 critic remarks,, that the primeval language might, in some instances, 

 and where there was a similarity of qualities, describe the latter by 

 names deduced from those which were at first given to the former. 

 And in the present case it is observable, that copper is not only of a 

 serpentine color, but resembles those noxious animals in its destruc- 

 tive properties, being in all its preparations accounted poisonous. 

 Dr. Harris proposes to read netshet, instead of necheshet, which we 

 may derive from the verb netesh to dig up, the very meaning of 

 * fossil' which comes from the Latin word fadio, to dig. It is to be 

 regretted, however, that this writer is so fond of conjectural emen- 

 dations of the sacred text. In the present instance, he does not 

 pretend to say that he is supported by a single MS. or version, as 

 indeed he could not; and therefore his conjecture, however, ingen- 

 ous, must fall to the ground. 



Our translators have rendered the Hebrew word maroth, in Exod. 

 xxxiit. 8, and Job xxxvii. 1J, 'looking-glass.' But the making mir- 

 rors of glass, coated with quicksilver, is an invention quite modern. 

 Dr. Adam Clarke has a note upon the place in Exodus, where our 

 version represents Moses as making ' the laver of brass, and the 

 foot of it of brass of the looking-glasses of the women.' He says, 

 'Here metal highly polished must certainly be meant, as glass was 

 not yet in use; and had it been, we are sure that looking- GLASSES 

 could not make a BRAZEN laver. The word, therefore, should be 

 rendered mirrors, not looking-glasses, which in the above verse is 

 perfectly absurd, because, from those MAROTH the brazen laver was 

 made. The first mirrors known among men were the clear still 

 fountain, and unruffled lake. The first artificial ones were appa- 

 rently made of brass, afterwards of polished steel, and when luxury 

 increased they were made of silver; but they were made, at a very 

 early period, of mixed metal, particularly of tin and copper, the best 

 of which, as Pliny tells us, were formerly manufactured at Brun- 

 dusium. But, according to him, the most esteemed were those 

 made of tin : and he says, that silver mirrors became so common 

 that even the servant girls used them. When the Egyptian wo- 

 men went to the temples, they always carried their mirrors with 

 them. The Israelitish women did the same ; and Dr. Shaw states, 

 that the Arab women carry them constantly hung at their breasts. 



It may be remarked, that the word * looking-glass' occurs in our 

 version of Ecclesiasticua xii, 11 : ' Never trust thine enemy ; for 



