THE ART OF HARDENING COPPER LOST 195 



of copper which took an edge as keen and showed an 

 endurance as great as that of anything left behind them 

 by the ancients. Of this alloy a razor was made which 

 proved quite serviceable but was not equal to finely tem- 

 pered steel and consequently it offered no attraction to the 

 modern artisan. 



The art of hardening copper is not lost, but it has fallen 

 into desuetude for two reasons: In the first place it is not 

 as efficient as good steel, and, secondly, copper is too costly 

 ever to take the place of the cheaper metal, iron, while the 

 latter can be made to do equally good work. While copper 

 is worth several cents per pound, iron is worth only a 

 fraction of a cent. This fact is reason enough for driving 

 copper out of use as a material for making cutting tools. 



Careful observation shows that much of the fine stone- 

 cutting work of the ancients was done by grinding rather 

 than by cutting. I doubt very much if any tool made 

 prior to the Christian era could stand the hard work to 

 which the picks used by the miller in dressing his mill- 

 stones are subjected. 



This matter of the hardening of copper is a very fair 

 sample of the erroneous ideas prevalent in regard to the 

 "Lost Arts," a subject in regard to which the late Wendell 

 Phillips was charmingly eloquent and woefully ignorant. 

 All the arts which have fallen into disuse and so are said 

 to have been lost, have been merely abandoned because 

 they have been superseded by something greatly better. 



