375 
Tin c 
as we now use plated copper ; on this head Pliny ob- 
serves, and a rigid philosopher will apply the observation 
to ourselves, that such was the luxury of the Romans, 
that it was then simply reckoned a piece of elegance to 
consume in the ornaments of coaches, and in the trap- 
pings of horses, metals, which their ancestors could not 
use in drinking vessels, without bei$g astonished at their 
own prodigality : we are not yet, however, arrived at the 
extravagance of Nero and his wife, who shod their fa- 
vourite horses with gold and silver* 
Puny mentions an experiment as characteristic of tin — 
that when melted and poured upon paper, it seemed to 
break the paper by its weight, rather than by its heat ; 
and Aristotle, long before Pliny, had remarked the small 
degree of heat which was requisite to fuse Celtic (British) 
tin.* This metal melts with less heat than any other 
simple metallic substance, e cept quicksilver; it requir- 
ing for its fusion not twice the heat in which water boils ; 
but compositions of tin and lead, which are used in tin- 
ning, melt with a still less degree of heat, than what is re- 
quisite to melt simple tin : and a mixture composed of 
5 parts of lead, 3 of tin, and 8 of bismuth, though solid 
in the heat of the atmosphere, melts with a less degree of 
heat, than that in which water boils, f 
Pewter vessels may be used for vinegar provided the 
tin in the composition be 82 per cent* The finest kinds 
of pewter contain no lead, but a small quantity of antimo- 
ny and copper* Sometimes 'Bismuth forms a part of the 
alloy* Vallerius gives for pewter 12 parts tin, 1 antimo- 
ny and l-48th of a part copper. Or, 100 tin, 8 antimony, 
1 bismuth and 4 copper* Tin 30 parts, zinc 1 part, 
brass one part, is a good alloy. 4 Watson 158—190* 
* De Mirab. 
t Discovered not by S. Is, Newton, but by RozeL T. C. 
