be vasa stannea, I mean such as when newly scoured and polished had a silvery brightness, and when they remained long without being cleaned acquired a dull gray colour, and a greater weight than bronze. Those who show these things commonly say, that the method of composing the metal is lost; but that it contains silver, and, according to the assertion of many, even gold. Such articles deserve, undoubtedly to be examined by our chemists.

I shall further remark, on this subject, that the abstrich, as it is called, which in many respects has a resemblance to stannum, and contains also lead and silver, but at the same time metals difficult of fusion, is employed in the arts, and collected for the use of the letter-founders.* For this purpose it is well adapted, on account of its hardness and durability; and in want of it lead must be mixed with regulus of antimony. At the lower Harze the workmen began so early as 1688 to revive this abstrich in particular; and as the lead thence obtained, on account of its hardness, could not be disposed of like common lead, it was sold to the letter-founders at Brunswick, at first at the rate of a hundred weight for two and a half dollars, and in the year 1689 for three

The French letter-founders take four fifths of lead and one fifth regulus of antimony; those of Berlin use eleven pounds of antimony, twenty-five of lead, and five of iron. Many add also tin, Copper, and brass.

dollars.* But in Schlüter's time a small quantity of it only was made annually, because the abstrich could be used with more advantage for other purposes. This lead, says Schlüter, had the appearance of bronze, and was so brittle, that a piece of it broke into fragments when struck.†

Speise also, which is obtained at the blue colour-works, can be employed in the same manner. Under this term is understood a metallic mixture deposited during the preparation of blue glass, and which is composed of various metals combined with cobalt, but particularly iron, copper, arsenic, and perhaps also bismuth. It is hard, brittle, sonorous, and assumes a good polish, though it is not always of the same quality in all manufactories. As it contains some colouring particles, it is in general again added to the glass residuum. But when I lately paid a visit to the colour-mill at Carlshafen, Mr. Birnstein the inspector told me, that the regulus of cobalt was manufactured at Halle into buttons of every kind. This probably is the case there in those buttonmanufactories established by G. H. Schier, in which at present buttons of all patterns are made annually to the value of 30,000 dollars.

* Gatterer Anleitung den Harz zu bereisen 3. p. 52.

+ Von Hutten-werken, p. 376.

The

A good account of this manufactory may be found in the Journal für Fabrik, Manufact. Handlung und Mode 1793. We are told there that the buttons were made of a composition which had a white silver-like colour, and was suceptible of a fine polish.

ancients, in my opinion, employed in a similar manner the werk of their silver smelting-houses.

I shall now proceed to examine that metal which the Greeks named aσoregos, or, as Pliny says, Cassiteron, and which he expressly adds was called by the Latins plumbum candidum (white lead). I have no new hypothesis to recommend; my sole object is truth. I wish for certainty, and when that is not to be obtained, probability; at the same time, however, I cannot rest satisfied with the judgment given by the compilers of dictionaries, and the translators and commentators of ancient authors, because I firmly believe that they never made any researches themselves on the subject.

That the ancients were acquainted with our tin as early as we find the word cassiteros mentioned by them, I am not able to prove, and I doubt whether it is possible to do so; the contrary seems to me to be more probable. In my opinion it was impossible for the Phoenicians, at so early a period, to obtain this metal from Portugal, Spain, and England, in such quantity that it could be spread all over the old world. The carriage of merchandise was not then so easy. If all the cassiteron was procured from the north-west parts of Europe, it appears to me that it must have been much dearer than it seems to have been in the oldest times, to judge from the information that has been preserved.

In my opinion the oldest cassiteron was nothing else than the stannum of the Romans, the werk of our smelting-houses, that is, a mixture of lead, silver, and some other accidental metals. That this has not been expressly remarked by any Greek writer, is, to me, not at all surprising, The works of those who might be supposed to have possessed knowledge of this kind, have not been handed down to us. We should not have known what stannum was, had not the only passage of Pliny which informs us been preserved. I am as little surprised that Herodotus should say, he did not know where cassiteron was obtained. How many modern historians are ignorant of the place from which zinc, bismuth, and tombac are brought; and however easy it might be for our historians to acquire knowledge of this kind if they chose, it was in the same degree difficult for Herodotus, in whose time there were not works on mineralogy, technology, and commerce, to furnish such information. At the period when he lived, cassiteron perhaps was no metallurgic production of any neighbouring mines, but a foreign commodity, a knowledge of which, mercantile people endeavoured in those early ages, much more than is the case in modern times, to conceal, and which also could be better concealed than at present.

That real tin was afterwards known to the Greeks, I readily believe; but I find no proof of it, nor can I determine the time at which they

first became acquainted with this metal. It is not improbable that they considered it only as a variety of their old cassiteron, or the stannum of the Romans, as the latter declared both to be a variety of lead. It might be expected that the Greeks would have given a peculiar name to the new tin, in order to distinguish it from the old, as the Romans really did; but this appears not to have been the case. I think, however, to have remarked that, so early as the time of Aristotle, real foreign tin was called the Tyrian or Celtic, because Tyre undoubtedly was, at that period, the market for this commodity.* It is to be recollected also, that the modern languages do not so speedily make and adopt new names for new articles as our present chemists and mineralogists. How long were zinc and bismuth called marcasite or lead; and how long was platina named white gold? Even at present the French call brass yellow copper.

* Aristot. de cura rei famil. lib. ii. according to du Val's edition iii. p. 695 Pythocles Atheniensibus consilium dedit, ut plumbum Tyrium, τον μολυβδον τον εκ των Τυρίων, respublica a privatis ad se reciperet, eo pretio quo vænibat, nimirum duobus denariis, ut civitas deinde illud venderet, constituto pretio denariorum sex. I shall take the liberty to remark, that monopolies, which many princes have claimed under the false name of regalia, such as the trade in rhubarb, saltpetre, mastic, and the like, do not belong to the finance operations of modern invention. --- In- Aristotle's Auscultat. mirabil. cap. 51. p. 100, the author relates a phenomenon which, in general, is applicable to tin; and he calls the metal Tv xaσσITEрoy Toy Keλ

Τίκον.