402 BOOK IX. 



open 41 . If there is a large amount of silver in the ore it is run into the fore- 

 hearth, and the greater part of the silver is absorbed by the molten lead, and 

 the remainder is sold with the copper to the proprietor of the works in which 

 silver is parted from copper 42 . If there is a small amount of silver in the ore, 

 no lead is put into the forehearth to absorb the silver, and the above- 



* l Aes purum sive proprius ei color insederit, sive chrysocolla vel caeruleo fuerit tinctum, 

 et rude plumbei colons, aut fusci, aut nigri. There are six copper minerals mentioned in this 

 sentence, and from our study of Agricola's De Natura Fossilium we hazard the following : 

 Proprius ei color insederit, " its own colour," probably cuprite or " ruby copper." 

 Tinctum chrysocolla partly the modern mineral of that name and partly malachite. Tinc- 

 tum caeruleo, partly azurite and partly other blue copper minerals. Rude plumbei coloris, 

 " lead coloured," was certainly chalcocite (copper glance). We are uncertain of fusci aut 

 nigri, but they were probably alteration products. For further discussion see note on p. 109. 



"HISTORICAL NOTE ON COPPER SMELTING. The discoverer of the reduction of copper 

 by fusion, and his method, like the discoverer of tin and iron, will never be known, because 

 he lived long before humanity began to make records of its discoveries and doings. Moreover, 

 as different races passed independently and at different times through the so-called " Bronze 

 Age," there may have been several independent discoverers. Upon the metallurgy of 

 pre-historic man we have some evidence in the many " founders' hoards " or " smelters' 

 hoards " of the Bronze Age which have been found, and they indicate a simple shallow pit in the 

 ground into which the ore was placed, underlaid with charcoal. Rude round copper cakes eight 

 to ten inches in diameter resulted from the cooling of the metal in the bottom of the pit. 

 Analyses of such Bronze Age copper by Professor Gowland and others show a small percentage 

 of sulphur, and this is possible only by smelting oxidized ores. Copper objects appear in the 

 pre-historic remains in Egypt, are common throughout the first three dynasties, and bronze 

 articles have been found as early as the IV Dynasty (from 3800 to 4700 B.C., according to the 

 authority adopted). The question of the origin of this bronze, whether from ores containing 

 copper and tin or by alloying the two metals, is one of wide difference of opinion, and we 

 further discuss the question in note 53, p. 411, under Tin. It is also interesting to note that 

 the crucible is the emblem of copper in the hieroglyphics. The earliest source of Egyptian 

 copper was probably the Sinai Peninsula, where there are reliefs as early as Seneferu (about 3700 

 B.C.), indicating that he worked the copper mines. Various other evidences exist of active 

 copper mining prior to 2500 B.C. (Petrie, Researches in Sinai, London, 1906, p. 51, etc.). The 

 finding of crucibles here would indicate some form of refining. Our knowledge of Egyptian 

 copper metallurgy is limited to deductions from their products, to a few pictures of crude 

 furnaces and bellows, and to the minor remains on the Sinai Peninsula ; none of the pictures 

 were, so far as we are aware, prior to 2300 B.C., but they indicate a considerable advance over 

 the crude hearth, for they depict small furnaces with forced draught first a blow-pipe, and in 

 the XVIII Dynasty (about 1500 B.C.) the bellows appear. Many copper articles have been 

 found scattered over the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor of pre-Mycenaean Age, some 

 probably as early as 3000 B.C. This metal is mentioned in the " Tribute of Yii " in the Shoo 

 King (2500 B.C. ?) ; but even less is known of early Chinese metallurgy than of the Egyptian. 

 The remains of Mycenaean, Phoenician, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations, stretching 

 over the period from 1800 to 500 B.C., have yielded endless copper and bronze objects, the 

 former of considerable purity, and the latter a fairly constant proportion of from 10% to 14% 

 tin. The copper supply of the pre-Roman world seems to have come largely, first from 

 Sinai, and later from Cyprus, and from the latter comes our word copper, by way of the Romans 

 shortening aes cyprium (Cyprian copper) to cuprum. Research in this island shows that it 

 produced copper from 3000 B.C., and largely because of its copper it passed successively 

 under the domination of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, and 

 Romans. The bronze objects found in Cyprus show 2% to 10% of tin, although tin does not, 

 so far as modern research goes, occur on that island. There can be no doubt that the Greeks 

 obtained their metallurgy from the Egyptians, either direct or second-hand possibly through 

 Mycenae or Phoenicia. Their metallurgical gods and the tradition of Cadmus indicate 

 this much. 



By way of literary evidences, the following lines from Homer (Iliad, xvm.) have 

 interest as being the first preserved description in any language of a metallurgical work. 

 Hephaestus was much interrupted by Thetis, who came to secure a shield for Achilles, and 

 whose general conversation we therefore largely omit. We adopt Pope's translation : 



There the lame architect the goddess found 

 Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round, 

 While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew ; 





