410 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



the past. In the matter of tools and means of production we have advanced so 

 that we may produce in one week as much as they did in one year. But still 'the 

 fact remains, they accomplished ihe work, and in the especial matter of bronze we 

 have not yet reached the height of perfection to which certainly they attained. 



Pliny and other ancient writers are very far from being correct in their de- 

 scriptions of the manufacturing processes ; and even the translators of their works 

 have added to the confusion, either through ignorance, or on account of the 

 poverty of the original language in technicalities, as we find brass in one place^ 

 white copper in another, copper in a third, all referred to indiscriminately, wheth- 

 er referring to pure copper, the alloys whitened by the addition of lead, tin, or 

 any other process ; although Pliny certainly does describe more correctly the 

 casting of bronze, for he says : " The mass of copper was brought to a liquid 

 state, then was thrown into a third part of old bronze and 12^ per cent, of plum- 

 bum argentarum," /. e., tin and lead in equal parts. We shall, therefore, trace 

 the history of the art of founding, so far as we have been able to gather it from 

 the past history of ancient times and the researches into and about the buried 

 cities, and trace its course down through the ages to the present time. 



The oldest reference we find in Holy Writ is in the Book of Job (the oldest 

 work extant), Ch. xxviii. 2, " Brass is molten out of the stone." In the original 

 Hebrew the word is Nechosheth, meaning literally copper. This must be so, as 

 brass, being an alloy and not a pure metal, is not smelted, or, as it is put here, 

 "molten out of the rock." The next reference is in Genesis iv. '22 ; "Tubal 

 Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." The same word -Ne- 

 chosheth, is used here, literally copper; but seeing that copper is a difficult metal 

 to work, we believe that the alloy of copper bronze is really meant. We incline 

 to this belief because there is only one other reference to copper in the Old Test- 

 ament (Ezra viii. 27): "Two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold." And 

 here the same word is used. We find that tin, which mixed with copper forms 

 bronze, certainly was known to the ancient Israelites, as in connection with the 

 spoil taken from the people of Midian 1452 b. c. (Num. xxxi. 22) they are com- 

 manded by Moses to purify the silver, brass, iron, tin, and lead by passing it 

 through the fire. (Moses appears here to mention all the metals then known.) 

 Whether the tin came from India or not there is no sufficient evidence to prove, 

 but it appears certain that the productions of that land were known in the earliest 

 times, by " the gold of Ophir" being mentioned in Job. 



If the Phoenician ships did not actually sail to India, its productions arrived 

 partly by land through Arabia, partly through more distant marts established 

 midway from India by the merchants of those and later times; and we have evi- 

 dence of their having arrived in Egypt at the early period of Joseph's having been 

 taken there, by the spices which the Ishmaelite caravans were carrying to that 

 land. And the amethyst and other objects discovered at Thebes, of the time of 

 the third Thothmes and succeeding Pharaohs, and which must have been brought 

 to Egypt, argue very strongly that the intercourse was constantly kept up. Bronze, 



