Brass* 
IB 
Is, when drawn into wire, said to be preferable to any 
made in England for musical instruments. If this pre- 
ference be real, it will cease to exist as soon as any inge- 
nious man shall undertake to examine the subject, for our 
materials for making brass are as good as any in the 
world. The quantity of charcoal which is used, is not 
the same at all works, it is generally about a fourth part of 
the weight of the calamine ; an excess of charcoal can be 
attended with no other inconvenience than that of useless- 
ly filling up the pots in which the brass is made ; but 
powdered pitcoal, which is used at some works in con- 
junction with, or in the place of charcoal, greatly injures 
the malleability of the brass. As to black jack, the other 
ore of zinc, it is not so commonly used as calamine for 
the making of brass. The manufacturers have been some- 
what capricious in their sentiments concerning it, some 
have prefered it to calamine, and others have wholly ne- 
glected it ; and the same persons at different times have 
made great use of it, or entirely laid it aside. There must 
have been some uncertainty in the produce or goodness 
of brass made by this mineral, to have occasioned such . 
different opinions concerning it, and this uncertainty may 
have proceeded either from the variable qualities of the 
mineral itself, or from the unskilfulness of the operators 
In calcining, &c. a mineral to which they had not been 
much accustomed. Several ship loads of it were sent a 
few years ago from Corn wall to Bristol, at the price of 40 
shillings down to a moidore a ton.^ Upon the whole, 
however, experience has not brought it into reputation at 
Bristol. [4 Wats. Ess . 48— 54. 
Dr. Aikins 5 article which is fuller, is as follows. 
This very important alloy is a mixture of copper and 
zinc in various proportions, so intimately united as 
to form a homogeneous malleable yellow metal,, appli- 
5 Miner. Qornu. p. 4f. 
