Though it must be confessed that this passage of Pliny cannot be fully understood by any explanation, it proves to conviction, that the stannum of the ancients was neither our tin nor a peculiar metal, but the werk of our smelting-houses. This was long ago remarked by those writers who were acquainted with metallurgy, of whom I shall here mention Agricola,* Encelius,† Fallopius, Savot,§ Bernia, and Jung.¶

The ancients used as a peculiar metal, a mixture of gold and silver, because they were not acquainted with the art of separating them, and

slag the remaining third. But if the first opinion be correct, why did Pliny say, plumbi origo duplex?

* Bermannus, p. 450, 485.

+ De re metallica libri iii. auctore Christ. Encelio. Francof. (1551) 271 pages, 8vo. i. 32. p. 62.

De metallis, cap. 22. Fallopii Opera omnia. Francof. 1606. fol. i. P. 322.

§ Discours sur les medailles antiques par Louis Savot. Paris 1627, 4to. ii. 2. p. 48. Of this work, which contains valuable information in regard to the mineralogy of the ancients, a Latin translation may be found in Thesaur. Antiquit. Roman. vol. xi. p. 1168. The greater part of it also was reprinted in Les Anciens mineralogistes de France, par Gobet, Paris 1779, 8vo. p. 812.

Aldrovandi Musaum metallicum auctore Mar. Ant. Bernia. Bononiæ 1648, fol. p. 181.

Joachim Jungii Doxoscopia, Hamburgi 1662, 4. cap. 5. de metalli speciebus. Of the writings of this learned man, and the service he rendered to mineralogy, an account may be seen in Vorrath Kleiner Anmerkungen über mancherley gelehrte gegenstände, von B. v. H. Leipsic 1795, 8vo. p. 94.

afterwards gave it the name of electrum.* In the like manner they employed also werk or stannum, which was obtained almost in the same way in the fusion of silver. In all probability it was employed before people became acquainted with the art of separating these two metals, and continued in use through habit, even after a method of separating them was discovered. If the ore subjected to fusion was abundant in silver, this mixture approached near to the noble metals; if poor in silver, it consisted chiefly of lead. When it consisted of silver and lead only, it was soft and ductile; but if other metals, difficult of fusion, such as copper, iron, or zinc, were intermixed, it was harder and more brittle, and in that case approached nearer to what the German silver-refiners call abzug and abstrich.

That this stannum was employed as an article of commerce, and that the ancients made of it vessels of various kinds, cannot be doubted. The vasa stannea, however, may be considered as vessels which were covered with tin only in the inside; for that this was customary I shall prove hereafter. In general these vasa stannea are named where mention is made of saline or oily things, or such as would readily acquire a taste

* See J. M. Gesner's Dissertation de electro veterum in Comment. Societ. Gottingensis, tom. iii. an. 1753.

and smell from other metals, were they boiled or preserved in them for any length of time.*

It has been long ago remarked that most of the Roman vessels were made of copper, and that these people were acquainted with the art of tinning or silvering them; but that tinned vessels have never been found, and silvered ones very rarely. Hence so many things appear to have been made of what is called bronze, which is less liable to acquire that dangerous rust or oxyde, known under the name of verdigrise than pure

tur.

:

* I shall here point out all the passages, with which I am acquainted, where such vessels are mentioned, because they have not yet been collected by others. Plinius xxix. 2. § 20. p. 499: in stannea pyxide conditur. Dioscorides, who gives this recipe for a salve, ii. 84. p. 109, mentions only an earthen vessel. Plin. xxx. 5. § 12. p. 526, and xxx. 7. § 19. p. 805 in cacabo stagneo decoquiColumella xii. 41. p. 805 in cacabo stagneo decoquitur. Vegetius i. 16. p. 1050: in vase vitreo vel stagneo recondita servabis. Plautus in a fragment, according to Taubmann's edition, p. 1253: muriatica autem video in vasis stagneis. Apuleius de Asino aureo, p. 841, in the edition in usum Delphini: de stanneo vasculo multo şese perungit oleo balsamo. In Palladius, lib. vi. Maio, 7. p. 958, regulis ligneis must certainly be read instead of stagneis, as is the case in Columella, from whom Palladius has borrowed the whole prescription. Our farmers use for the same purpose a couple of wooden rods, which answer exceedingly well. Scribonius Largus Composit. medic. edit. Rhodii. Patavii 1655, 4to. § 230. p. 115: reponitur pyxide nigri plumbi; hæc pyxis in ampliorem stagneam mittitur. § 268, 269, 271: stagneum vas; and § 30: stagnea pyxis. Plin. Valer. lib. i. cap. 31. and lib. ii. cap. 30. lib. iii. cap. 2. and 31: has stagnatum for vas stanneum. In 1. 9. § 2ff. de l. Corn. nummi stagnei. Marcellus Empir. in the fourth century: vasa stannea: cap. 21.

copper. This bronze is sometimes given out as a Corinthian and sometimes Syracusan brass, as the gold-coloured coins of the first size were considered to be Corinthian brass also. But in my opinion, a great and perhaps the greater part of all these things were made of stannum, properly so called, which by the admixture of the noble metals, and some difficult of fusion, was rendered fitter for use than pure copper. We are told by Suetonius, that the emperor Vitellius took away all the gold and silver from the temples, and substituted in their stead aurichalcum and stannum.*

Whether the Greeks worked stannum, and under what name, I do not know: perhaps we ought to class here the naσoregiva of the oldest times, of which I shall speak hereafter.

κασσιτερίνα

What I have already said in regard to werk will be rendered more certain by the circumstance, that, even two centuries ago, vessels of all kinds called halbwerk were made of it, in Germany. This we are told by Encelius † as a thing.

* Sueton. Vitell. 6. p. 192: dona atque ornamenta templorum subripuisse et commutasse quædam ferebatur, proque auro et argento, stannum et orichalcum supposuisse. The last words ought properly be transposed; tin, which was of a white colour, was to serve instead of silver.

In the work already quoted, i. cap. 32. p. 64: Vides stannum Plinio esse quiddam de plumbo nigro, nempe primum fluorem plumbi nigri; so that when our lead ore is fused, the first part that flows would be the stannum of Pliny. Et hoc docet Plinius adulterari plumbo candido; with our tin, and properly considered the

well known in his time, which however I should wish to see further examined. I have searched, in vain, for this name in a great many works of the sixteenth century; but I have long entertained an idea, which I shall take this opportunity of mentioning:-Among the oldest church vessels, I have seen some articles which I considered to

stannum of Pliny is merely our halbwerk, of which those cans called halbwerk are made.

This man deserves that I should here revive the remembrance of him as well as I can. Entzel was a native of Salfeld; preacher, pastor Osterhuzensis, as Wallerius says in Lucubratio Acad. p. 19, and a friend of Melanchthon, who recommended the book for publication to Egenholf, a bookseller of Franckfort, in a letter dated 1551, in which year it was printed. It was reprinted at the same place, in 1557. Professor Bohmer, in Biblioth. iv. 1. p. 19. speaks of an edition which came out at Basle, in 1555, 8vo. A bad German translation may be found in Corpus juris et systema rerum metallicarum, or Bergbuch. Franckf. 1698, fol. the first edition of which was superintended by Peucer. The editor says in the preface that Entzel's book was printed so early as 1524 and 1526, at Franckfort; which however from Melanchthon's letter appears to be improbable. This book was inserted also in a collection edited by the well-known Becher at Franckfort, 1698. fol. under the following title: Scriptorum rei metallica dodecas. This small work, however, is so scarce, that I have never yet been able to procure it. In Gesneri Biblioth. per Simlerum, it is said, p. 121, that Entzel wrote also on fishes, and a commentary on Dioscorides, with which I am unacquainted. A dissertation De uva quercina is mentioned by Haller in Methodus studii med. p. 179; and in Biblioth. botan. i. p. 356: he says that it was printed with the edition of 1577 de re metallica. The size he improperly calls folio, in Meth, stud. med. Information of this kind will always be read with satisfaction, even in places where, according to the opinion of severe judges, it might not belong, by those who are fond of tracing out the history of inventions and of the sciences in general.