86 



Coin and Currency in [No. 9, NEW series. 



JEs was the material of the earliest Italian currency. It was 

 a compound metal in which copper was the principal ingredient. 

 The Italians translate the word by rame, or otone ; the French by 

 airain : the English call it brass — or people who wish to be par- 

 ticular say copper. All these words are vague, and worse — they 

 are calculated to mislead. Brass is a compound of copper and 

 zinc, but objects of ancient art, coins or others, to which the term 

 CBS is applicable contain no zinc. Their fundamental composition 

 is copper and tin. To this mixture we give the name bronze — a 

 word probably derived from the Italian bruno, because the artists 

 of the Revival gave that color to their metal works. 



^Es or bronze, then, was much and variously used by the 

 ancients, Greeks as well as Romans. Their ingenuity was exer- 

 cised in attempts to vary its color and improve its texture by the 

 admixture of sundry metals besides its two principal components. 

 Analysis has detected gold, silver, lead, and iron in ancient works 

 of bronze. Perhaps the best known and most highly prized 

 variety was the Corinthian Bronze — said to have been discovered 

 accidentally by the fusion together of various metals when Corinth 

 was burned by Mummius, (B. C. 146). We find mention of it 

 however before this date. 



The ancients may have known the compound which we term 

 brass. Zinc as a metal is mentioned first by Paracelsus, (who 

 died 1541) : but brass might have been, and at the present time 

 frequently is, made without the intervention of metallic zinc — by 

 heating together granulated copper and lapis calaminam (carbo- 

 nate of zinc). I do not think, however, that there are any speci- 

 mens extant of ancient Roman or Grecian brass. Certainly for 

 the purposes of coinage bronze is preferable, being harder, and 

 more fusible though less malleable. All alloys of copper and tin 

 are hard ; and often brittle if cooled slowly. It is a curious fact 

 that " tempering" produces upon bronze the contrary effect to 

 that which it has on steel. To make bronze fit for the coining- 

 press it must be heated to redness and plunged into cold water. 



The composition of the more ancient Greek bronze (%a^xos,) 

 is very uniform. It is 88 copper to 12 tin. In modern times 

 compounds of which the basis is copper and tin are used for vari- 



