1 





in Brigantia and other parts of Britain. 10 1 



it be mixed with another metal. Silver cannot be leaded (lined) 

 with it, it will be melted first."...." It is affirmed that if there be 

 too little nigrum mixed with the album, the silver will be corro- 

 ded by it. Album is melted into brass-work (inlaid, an invention 

 of Gaul,) so that it can hardly be known from silver — these works 

 are called Incoctilia" (silvered.) He then speaks of the applica- 

 tion of this invention to the trappings of horses and carriages, 

 and other curious productions of Alesia and the Bituriges, a sub- 

 ject which our esteemed Kenrick has lately handled with his 

 usual felicity. One of Pliny's sentences is remarkable as narra- 

 ting a class experiment fit for a chemical school: " Plumbi albi 

 experimentum in chartaest, ut liquefactum pondere videatur, non 

 calore, rupisse." 



The meaning seems to be, that the metal is fluid at so moder- 

 ate a heat as when fused to break by its weight, not burn by its 

 heat, the charta on which it is poured. Tin melts at 440° to 

 442° ; lead at 612°. 



What follows is a very important passage: "India neque aes 



neque plumbum habet, gemmisque suis ac margaritis hoc per- 

 mutat." 



May we be justified by this sentence in refusing to credit the 

 supposition that tin (plumbum album) was brought overland or 

 by other routes from the Asiatic Isles and shores towards Western 

 Europe ? If so, Cornwall chiefly, if not wholly, supplied the tin 

 which entered so many ways into the comforts and necessities 

 during peace and war of all the nations surrounding the Mediter- 

 ranean and Euxine, Baltic and German Ocean ; in fact, the world, 

 as distinctly known to the Roman geographers. 



Let us now inquire into the means whereby the ancient people 

 reduced the metals which they were so earnest in seeking across 

 mountains and oceans at the point of the sword. To confine the 

 inquiry within reasonable limits, we shall speak chiefly of tin and 

 lead, the only metallic products, as it appears, which were regard- 

 ed by the ancients as abundant in Britain. [Iron is mentioned 

 by Caesar as of limited occurrence.] 



Gold, the most widely if not most abundantly distributed metal 

 —found near the surface of the earth, in a pure and malleable 

 state, easily fused, uninjured by fusion— was probably the metal- 

 lic substance on which the earliest processes of fire were tried, 

 and they could not be tried unsuccessfully. 

 . Tin, the ore of which has been found at the surface m many 

 situations with auriferous sand and gravel, cannot have been long 

 unknown to the gold-finders of the East and the West. Some 

 one of the many accidents which may or rather must have ac- 

 companied the melting of gold, would disclose the nature of the 

 accompanying white metal, whose brilliance, ductility, and very 

 easy fusibility, would soon give it value. 



