§2 
Brass . 
to which brass is applied. These mixtures may probably 
injure the malleability of the brass, but they may at the 
same time increase its hardness, or render it susceptible of 
a better polish, or give it a particularity of colour, or some 
other quality by which it may be more useful in certain 
manufactories, than if it was quite free from them, and 
consisted of nothing but of the purest metallic part of the 
calamine, united to the purest copper. This may be 
illustrated from what is observable in other metals. The 
red iron ore from Furness in Lancashire produces an iron, 
which is as tough as Spanish iron, it makes very fine wire ; 
but when converted into bars, it is not esteemed so good 
as that which is made in the forest of Dean, and other 
places. There are but few sorts of iron which, though 
useful in other respects, are fit for being converted into 
steel : some sorts of iron will admit an high polish, as may 
be seen in many expensive grates which are sold as grates 
of polished steel, though they are nothing but iron, whilst 
others take but a very indifferent polish ; the Swedish , 
Russian, and English irons, and even the irons made at dif- 
ferent furnaces in the same country are respectively fit for 
some purposes, and unfit for other; he who should attempt 
to use the same iron for the making of wire, and for coach 
and waggon wheels, would betray great ignorance in his 
business. In like manner, a notable difference may be ob- 
served in different sorts of copper, yet all of them have 
their respective uses : the Swedish copper is more mal- 
leable than the copper of Hungary ; the copper of Anglesea 
differs from the copper of Cornwall and of Staffordshire, 
The braziers prefer that copper which they can work with 
the greatest facility, but the malleability of copper should 
not be esteemed the only criterion of its goodness ; for the 
copper which is less malleable may admit a finer polish, 
and may last longer when exposed, as in breweries, in the 
navy, he, to the action of the fire, titan the copper which 
