96 Mr. J. Phillips on Ancient Metallurgy and Mining 



Art. X. — Thoughts on Ancient Metallurgy and Mining in Bri- 

 gantia and other parts of Britain, suggested by a page of 

 Pliny's Natural History; by John Phillips, Esq., F.R.S., 



F.G.S.* 



To one who meditates on the progress of natural knowledge, 

 the difficulty of penetrating to a true estimate of its condition in 

 past ages often appears unconquerable, except in cases which ad- 

 mit of the interpretation of ancient results by modern laws and 

 theories. Once in firm possession of such laws, we enclose the 

 old phenomena, so to speak, in a field to which are only such and 

 such possible avenues, and thus can sometimes declare the very 

 mode by which the alchemist was led to his golden error, and the 

 Chaldasan shepherds to brighter truths. Without this principle 

 of interpretation, many almost modern writers, nay authors of 

 this very century, can sometimes not be understood. The laws 

 of modern geology and zoology, for such there are, and well- 

 founded too, are as much required to put a true construction on 

 some of the writings of Lister and Linnaeus, as the methods of 

 Ray, Linnaeus, and Cuvier are required for the just estimation of 

 Aristotle. We shall probably find the darkest pages of antiquity 

 to be precisely those which refer to subjects where our own know- 

 ledge is least clear, least collected into laws of phenomena, and 

 most removed from laws of causation. Ought we not, before 

 declaiming on the ignorance of the ancients, to be careful to make 

 allowance for the differences of form in which knowledge presents 

 itself at different periods, as well as for the incompleteness of 

 their records, and the imperfection of our interpretations? 



Pliny's Natural History appears to me to be precisely in the 

 very position of difficulty which has been alluded to. Its vast- 

 ness, variety, and seeming disorder, may well deter the most com- 

 prehensive master of modern science from duly weighing its mass, 

 or even measuring its surface ; and the evident incompleteness 

 and almost hap-hazard character of its chapters are apt to disgust 

 the student of special branches of science and art. Yet, proba- 

 bly, if for each important branch of human knowledge handled 

 by Pliny, a special editor were set to work, well versed in the 

 philosophy of his subject, Pliny would take a higher degree on 

 examination, and the history of human knowledge be amended. 



From the thirty-seven books of diffuse and erudite learning, 

 the genuine work of Pliny the elder, let us fix on the part which 

 treats of the nature of metals; and passing over his lamentations 

 on the useless excess of gold and silver — which may be recom- 



From the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society for March, 1848; 

 and here cited from the London, Edinburgh and Dublin Phil. Mag., April, 1849. 



