there is no impossibility in supposing that copper ore may be so intimately blended with an ore of zinc, or of some other metallic substance, that the compound, when smelted, may yield a mixt me. tal of a paler hue than copper, and resembling the colour of either gold or silver. In Du Halde's History of China, we meet with the following account of the Chinese white copper. "The most extraordinary copper is called pe-tong, or white copper: it is white when dug out of the mine, and still more white within than without. It appears, by a vast number of experiments made at Peking, that its colour is owing to no mixture; on the contrary, all mixtures diminish it's beauty; for when it is rightly managed, it looks exactly like silver and were there not a necessity of mixing a little tutenag, or some such metal with it, to soften it, and prevent its brittleness, it would be so much the more extraordinary; as this sort of copper is, perhaps to be met with no where but in China, and that only in the province of Yunnan*." Notwithstanding what is here said, of the colour of this copper being owing to no mixture, it is certain that the Chinese white copper, as brought to us, is a mixt metal; so that the ore, from which it is extracted, must consist of various metallic substances; and from some such ore it is possible that the natural orichalcum, if ever it existed, may have been made. But, though the existence of natu. ral orichalcum cannot be shewn to be impossible, yet there is some reason to doubt whether it ever had a real existence or not: for I pay not much attention to what Father Kircher has said of orichalcum being found between Mexico and the straits of Darien; because no other author has confirmed his account, at least none on whose skill in mineralogy we may welyt.

We know of no country in which it is found at present; nor was it any where found in the age of Pliny, nor does he seems to have known the country where it ever had been found. He admits, indeed, its having been formerly dug out of the earth; but it is remarkable that, in the very passage he is mentioning by name the countries most celebrated for the production of different kinds of copper, he only says in general, concerning orichalcum, that it had been found in other countries, without specifying any particular country. Plato acknowledges that orichalcum was a thing only + Kirch. Mund. Sub,

Fol. Trans. Vol. I. p. 16,

talked of even in his time; it was no where then to be met with, though in the island of Atlantis it had been formerly extracted from its mine. The Greeks were in possession of a metallic substance called orichalcum, before the foundation of Rome; for it is men. tioned by Homer and by Hesiod, and by both of them in such a manner as shews that it was held in great esteem. Other ancient writers have expressed themselves in similar terms of commenda, tion; and it is principally from the circumstance of the high reputed value of orichalcum, that authors are induced to suppose the ancient orichalcum to have been a natural substance, and very different from the factitious one in use at Rome, and probably in Asia; and which, it has been shewn, was nothing different from our brass.

But this circumstance, when properly considered, does not ap pear to be of weight sufficient to establish the point. Whenever the method of making brass was first found out, it is certain that it must have been for some time, perhaps for some ages, a very scarce commodity; and this scarcity, added to its real excellence as a metallic substance, must have rendered it very valuable, and entitled it to the greatest encomiums. Diodorus Siculus speaks of a people who willingly bartered their gold for an equal weight of iron or copper* ; and the Europeans have long carried on a similar kind of commerce with various nations. Gold, in some views, is justly esteemed the most valuable of metals; in other, and those the most important to the well-being of mankind, is far inferior to iron, or copper, or brass. An individual, whose life depended upon the issue of a single combat, to be decided by the sword, would have no hesitation in preferring a sword of steel, to one of gold; and an army, which should be possessed of golden armour, would not scruple to exchange it, in the day of battle, for the iron accoutrements of their enemies. The preference of the harder metals to gold, is no less obvious in agriculture, than in war; a ploughshare, mattock, chisel, hammer, saw, nail, of gold, is not for use so valuable, as an instrument of the same kind made of iron or brass. Hence, there is no manner of absurdity in sup posing that orichalcum, when first introduced among the ancients might have been prized at the greatest rate, though it had been possessed of no other properties, than such as appertain to brass. When iron was either not at all known, or not common in the

Lib. III.

world, and copper instruments, civil and military, were almost the only ones in use*, a metallic mixture, resembling gold in splen. dour, and preferable to copper, on account of its superior hard. ness, and being less liable to rust, must have greatly excited the attention of mankind, been eagerly sought after, and highly ex, tolled by them. The Romans, no doubt, when it had been stipu lated in the league which Porsenna made with them, after the ex. pulsion of the Tarquins, that they should not use iron, except in agriculture, must have esteemed a metallic mixture such as brass, at a rate not easily to be creditedt. It is not here attempted to prove, that there never was a metallic substance called orichalcum, superior in value and different in quality from brass; but merely to shew, that the common reason assigned for its existence, is not so cugent as is generally supposed.

Considering the few ancient writers we have remaining, whose particular business it was to speak with precision concerning sub, jects of art, or of natural history, we ought not to be surprised at the uncertainty in which they have left us concerning orichal. cum. Men have been ever much the same in all ages; or, if any general superiority in understanding is to be allowed, it may seem to be more properly ascribed to those who live in the manhood or old age of the world, than to those who existed in its infancy or childhood: especially as the means of acquiring and communi. cating knowledge, with us, are far more attainable than they were in the times of either Greece or Rome. The compass enables us to extend our researches to every quarter of the globe with the greatest ease; and an historical narration of what is seen in dis. tant countries, is now infinitely more diffused than it could have been, before the invention of printing; yet, even with these advantages, we are, in a great measure, strangers to the natural his,

* Hesiod.

+ In fœdere quod, expulsis regibus, populo Romano dedit Porsenna, nominatim comprehensum invenimus, ne ferro nisi in agricultura uterentur. Plin. Hist. Nat. Vol. II. p. 666.—Was Porsenna induced to prohibit the Romans the use of iron arms, from the opinion, which seems to have prevailed in Greece two hundred years afterward—that wounds, made with copper weapons, were more easily healed, than those made with iron? Aris. Op. L. IV. p. 43. Buffon quotes Homer's Odyssey, and some Chinese authors, to prove that the use of the mariner's compass in navigation was known to the ancients, at least three thousand years ago. Nat. Hist, by Buffon, Vol. IX. p. 17. Smellie's Trans.

tory of the earth, and the civil history of the nations which inhabit it. He who imports tutenag from the East Indies, or white copper from China or Japan, is sure of meeting with a ready market for his merchandize in Europe, without being asked any questions concerning the manner how, or the place where, they are prepared. An ingenious manufacturer of these metallic substances might wish, probably, to acquire some information about them, in order to attempt a domestic imitation of them; but the merchant who imports them, seems to be too little interested in the success of his endeavours, to take much pains in procuring for him the requisite information. Imitations, however, have been made of them, and we have an European tutenag, and an European white copper, differing, in some qualities, from those which are brought from Asia, but resembling them in so many other, that they have acquired their names. Something of this kind may have been the case with respect to orichalcum, and the most ancient Greeks may have known no more of the manner in which it was made, than we do of that in which the Chinese prepare their white copper: they may have had too an imitation of the original, and their authors may have often mistaken the one for the other, and thus have introduced an uncertainty and confusion into their accounts of it.

There is as little agreement amongst the learned concerning the etymology of orichalcum, as concerning its origin. Those who write it aurichalcum, suppose that it is an hybridous word, composed of a Greek term signifying copper, and a Latin one signi fying gold. The most general opinion is, that it ought to be written orichalcum, and that it is compounded of two Greek words, one signifying copper, and the other a mountain, and that we rightly render it by, mountain copper. I have always looked upon this as a very forced derivation, inasmuch as we do not thereby distinguish orichalcum from any other kind of copper; most copper mines, in every part of the world, being found in mountainous countries. If it should be thought, that some one particular mountain, either in Greece or Asia, formerly produced an ore,

The ingenious Dr. Higgins has been honoured by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. with a gold medal for white copper, made with English materials, in imitation of that brought from the East Indies. His process has not, I believe, been yet made public. Mem. of Agricul, Vol. III, p. 459.

which being smelted yielded a copper of the colour of gold, and that this copper was called orichalcum, or the mountain copper, it is much to be wondered at, that neither the poets nor the phi losophers of antiquity have bestowed a single line in its commen. dation; for as to the Atlantis of Plato, before mentioned, no one, it is conceived, will build an argument for the existence of natural orichalcum, on such an uncertain foundation; and, if there had been any such mountain, it is probable, that the copper it pro. duced would have retained its name, just as at this time of day we speak of Ecton copper in Staffordshire, and Paris-mountain copper in Anglesey.

Some men are fond of etymological inquiries, and to them I would suggest a very different derivation of orichalcum. The He. brew word or, aur, signifies light, fire, flame; the Latin terms uro, to burn, and aurum, gold, are derived from it, inasmuch as gold resembles the colour of flame; and hence, it is not impro bable, that orichalcum may be composed of an Hebrew and Greek term, and that it is rightly rendered, flame-coloured copper. In confirmation of this it may be observed, that the Latin epithet lucidum, and the Greek one pasivov, are both applied to orichal cum by the ancients; but I would be understood to submit this conjecture, with great deference, to those who are much better skilled than I am in etymological learning.

[Bishop Watson.

Dr. Watson has justly observed in the preceding essay, that none of the poets or philosophers have spoken in favour of ori. chalcum. Among the Roman poets the term employed both for copper and brass, or orichalcum, was as; which is the only term adopted by Lucretius when he evidently means mineral copper, either in its ores or in metallic veins. This, however, by his translators is in almost all cases translated brass, but most erro. neously; for, as we have just seen, brass is a mixed metal, and has never, that we know of, been traced in a native state. Mr. Good is the only one of the translators who has entered into the scientific meaning of the term, and has avoided the error: nor can we conclude this chapter better than by quoting his translation of the "Nature of Things," which describes the mode by which philosophers in the time of Lucretius supposed mankind to have ac■ ' quired their first rude knowledge of metals.