TINNINO COPPER, &.C. 305 



to* believe, that the Romans, at least when Pliny wrote that book, 

 did understand the method of tinning copper which is now in use; 

 for this great naturalist assures us in express terms, that tin, 

 smeared upon copper vessels, rendered the taste more agreeable, 

 and restrained the virulence of copper rust. It is to no purpose 

 to object, that the tin (stannum) of Pliny was a substance different 

 from our tin ; for though it should be in some measure granted 

 that it was a mixture of lead and silver, yet the same author tells 

 us, in the same place, that white lead (plumbum album), by which 

 it is universally allowed our tin is meant,* was so incorporated with 



* Mr. Good, while he acknowledges that by plumbum album was generally 

 meant tin, informs us that by the same term pewter, or a mixture of lead and 

 tin, was also occasionally intended. The passage we refer to is in his note upon 

 Lucretius. VI. 579. 



Denique, et auro res aurum concopulat una, 

 JGrique aes PLUMBO fit utei jungatur ab ALSO* 

 One cement sole with gold concentrates gold, 

 And nought but PEWTER brass with brass unites. 



The cement here referred to, says he, is doubtless, the chrysocella, a mineral 

 sand, found on the shores of the Red Sea, of an elegant green colour, deno- 

 minated by the natives of modern times linear, or tincal. The borax, now in 

 use for similar purposes, does not differ essentially from the chrysocolla, when 

 dissolved and crystalised, and is, by some chemists, supposed to be precisely 

 the same. 



Pewter i?, in the present day, the common solder for copper and brass: it 

 is generally a combination of tin, lead, and regulus of antimony. From the 

 lead employed in the manufacture, and the splendid whiteness of its appear* 

 ance when too much lowered or adulterated, it is here happily denominated 

 by our poet plumbum album ; literally " white lead :" and by this term it is 

 erroneously translated by Guernier. I say, erroneously ; for the cerusse, or 

 white lead of modern days, is no solder whatever in metallic preparations. 

 Creech omits the verse entirely, and thus dexterously runs away from the dif- 

 ficulty. De Coutures is wrong in the whole passage : " 1'argent," says he, 

 " est allie avec Tor, et 1'airain avec le plomb." " Silver unites itself with gold, 

 and brass with lead." Marchetti is quite correct : 



con lo stagno il rame 

 Si salda al ramc. 



I most leave it to the chemists to determine what substance was employed 

 formerly, instead of the regulus of antimony ; or whether the ancients were 

 acquainted with a metal of this description, and its different powers in dif- 

 ferent states of combination. Yet, probably, the plumbum album, or copper 

 solder of the Romans, was a mixture of lead and tin alone. 



Since writing the above, I have met with an excellent memoir of M. Klap- 

 roth, inserted in the Berlin Memoirs de 1' Academic Royale des Sciences, Vol. 

 for 17921795; in which the author asserts, that the plumbum nigrum of the 

 Romans was lead, and the plumbum album, candidum, or argcntarium, tin, 

 or the nas-a-iTipev of tbe Greeks. There can be ao doubt that this appellation 



VOJ,. TI. X 



