open*1. If there is a large amount of silver in the ore it is run into the forehearth, and the greater part of the silver is absorbed by the molten lead, and
the remainder is sold with the copper to the proprietor of the works in which
silver is parted from copper42. If there is a small amount of silver in the ore,
no lead is put into the forehearth to absorb the silver, and the above-
*xAes purum sive proprius ei color insederit, sive chrysocolla vel caeruleo fuerit tinctum,
el rude plumbei colons, aut fusci, aut nigri. There are six copper minerals mentioned in this
sentence, and from our study of Agiicola's De Natura Fossilium we hazard the following :—
Proprius ei color insederit,—"its own colour,"—probably cuprite or "ruby copper."
Tinctum chrysocolla—partly the modern mineral of that name and partly malachite. Tinctum caeruleo, partly azurite and partly other blue copper minerals. Rude plumbei coloris,—
" lead coloured,"—was certainly chalcocite (copper glance). We are uncertain of fusci aut
nigri, but they were probably alteration products. For further discussion see note on p. 109.
"Historical Note on Copper Smelting.—The discoverer of the reduction of copper
by fusion, and his method, like the discoverer of tin and iron, will never be known, because
he lived long before humanity began to make records of its discoveries and doings. Moreover,
as different races passed independently and at different times through the so-called " Bronze
Age," there may have been several independent discoverers. Upon the metallurgy of
pre-historic man we have some evidence in the many " founders' hoards " or " smelters'
hoards " of the Bronze Age which have been found, and they indicate a simple shallow pit in the
ground into which the ore was placed, underlaid with charcoal. Rude round copper cakes eight
to ten inches in diameter resulted from the cooling of the metal in the bottom of the pit.
Analyses of such Bronze Age copper by Professor Gowland and others show a small percentage
of sulphur, and this is possible only by smelting oxidized ores. Copper objects appear in the
pre-historic remains in Egypt, are common throughout the first three dynasties, and bronze
articles have been found as early as the IV Dynasty (from 3800 to 4700 b.c., according to the
authority adopted). The question of the origin of this bronze, whether from ores containing
copper and tin or by alloying the two metals, is one of wide difference of opinion, and we
further discuss the question in note 53, p. 411, under Tin. It is also interesting to note that
the crucible is the emblem of copper in the hieroglyphics. The earliest source of Egyptian
copper was probably the Sinai Peninsula, where there are reliefs as early as Seneferu (about 3700
B.c.), indicating that he worked the copper mines. Various other evidences exist of active
copper mining prior to 2500 b.c. (Pétrie, Researches in Sinai, London, 1906, p. 51, etc.). The
finding of crucibles here would indicate some form of refining. Our knowledge of Egyptian
copper metallurgy is limited to deductions from their products, to a few pictures of crude
furnaces and bellows, and to the minor remains on the Sinai Peninsula ; none of the pictures
were, so far as we are aware, prior to 2300 b.c., but they indicate a considerable advance over
the crude hearth, for they depict small furnaces with forced draught—first a blow-pipe, and in
the XVIII Dynasty (about 1500 b.c.) the bellows appear. Many copper articles have been
found scattered over the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor of pre-Mycenaean Age, some
probably as early as 3000 b.c. This metal is mentioned in the " Tribute of Yü " in the Shoo
King (2500 b.c. ?) ; but even less is known of early Chinese metallurgy than of the Egyptian.
The remains of Mycenaean, Phoenician, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations, stretching
over the period from 1800 to 500 b.c., have yielded endless copper and bronze objects, the
former of considerable purity, and the latter a fairly constant proportion of from 10% to 14%
tin. The copper supply of the pre-Roman world seems to have come largely, first from
Sinai, and later from Cyprus, and from the latter comes our word copper, by way of the Romans
shortening aes cyprium (Cyprian copper) to cuprum. Research in this island shows that it
produced copper from 3000 b.c., and largely because of its copper it passed successively
under the domination of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, and
Romans. The bronze objects found in Cyprus show 2% to 10% of tin, although tin does not,
so far as modern research goes, occur on that island. There can be no doubt that the Greeks
obtained their metallurgy from the Egyptians, either direct or second-hand—possibly through
Mycenae or Phoenicia. Their metallurgical gods and the tradition of Cadmus indicate
this much.
By way of literary evidences, the following lines from Homer (Iliad, xvui.) have
interest as being the first preserved description in any language of a metallurgical work.
Hephaestus was much interrupted by Thetis, who came to secure a shield for Achilles, and
whose general conversation we therefore largely omit. We adopt Pope's translation :—
There the lame architect the goddess found
Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round,
While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew ;
