brass. In the reign of Edward III. the exportation of iron, either made at home or brought into England, had been prohibited upon the pain of forfeiting double the value of the quantity exported *. And in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. several acts of parliament had been passed, prohibiting the exportation of brass, copper, latten, bell-metal, pan-metal, gun-metal, shrof-metal, under the same penalty +. The general reason for passing these acts certainly does not apply to the present state of our mines and manufactures, for the reason was this-lest there should not be metal enough left in the kingdom fit for making of guns and other en. gines of war, nor for household utensils. The forementioned acts of parliament were particularly repealed, by an act passed in the sixth year of William and Mary, by which it was rendered lawful to export, after the 25th of March, 1694, all manner of iron, copper, or mundick metal; but the prohibition of the other metals was continued. The brass-makers in 1783 applied for the same liberty which had been granted to the iron and copper smelters, a liberty of exporting the crude commodity; this liberty was not granted them by the legislature, for the bill which had passed the House of Commons, was thrown out by the Lords. The Birmingham manufacturers presented a petition to the House of Com. mons, against the bill which was then pending; in which petition it was represented that frequent attempts had been made to erect manufactures similar to those of Birmingham in different parts of Europe, and that the excellence of some of the Birmingham arti. cles depended upon brass of very different qualities; and that, fortunately for this country, there were several sorts of brass that were peculiarly adapted to the different branches of their manufac. tures; so that the sort which was suitable for one article, was improper for another: and that they had reason to believe, that the manner of adapting the various sorts of English brass to different articles in their manufactures, was not known to foreigners; but that if free liberty was given to export brass, every maker might be induced to discover the peculiar uses of his sort, and that very disagreeable consequences to their manufactures might thereby be produced. The petitioners also represented-that brass-makers, in different provinces of this kingdom, had not succeeded in making the sorts of brass made in other provinces; and that one great company of brass-makers had not succeeded in making brass suitable for the Birmingham market, though they had professed an earnest desire to do so. And they humbly apprehended, that there never had been such a quantity of brass exported as to render it a national object; and that there was not a probability of any such quantity being exported, though so much might be as to raise a ruinous competition to their manufactures, &c.

The brass makers, it may be said, suffered an injury in being prohibited from exporting a commodity by which they might be gainers, merely lest the great brass manufacturers should lose somewhat of their profit, by having a less extensive trade. But this is not a proper state of the case; it is not for the sake of the great brass manufacturers that the prohibition of exporting brass is continued, nor is there any want of that metal in the kingdom; but lest foreigners should rival us in a trade which, in affording employment to many thousands of people, is of the greatest consequence to the kingdom in general. The proprietors of fullers earth have been prohibited from exporting that material; not out of any partial regard of the legislature for the great woollen manufacturers, but lest the number of persons employed in that manufacture should be much lessened, if foreigners were supplied with an article so essentially necessary to its perfection, as fullers earth is found to be; and though other nations have fullers earth, yet that which is met with in England is reckoned to be fitter for the woollen manufactory, than any other which has yet been found in any part of the world. This observa. tion may be applied to the subject we are speaking of. Great quantities of good brass are made by most nations in Europe, as well as by the English, but the English brass is more adapted to the Birmingham manufactories than any other sort is; and hence in France, Portugal, Russia, and Germany, our unmanufactured brass is allowed to be imported free of duty, but heavy duties are imposed in those countries on manufactured brass when imported. The manner of mixing different sorts of brass, so as to make the mixture fit for particular manufactures, is not known to foreigners; though this is a circumstance of the greatest importance: but there can be little doubt, that if foreign nations were possessed of all the sorts of English brass, they would soon seduce our workmen to instruct them in the manner of mixing them, and in some other little circumstances, which are not generally known, but on which

the success of the manufacture depends in a great degree. On these and other accounts, till commerce puts on a more liberal appearance than it has hitherto done in Europe; till different nations shall be disposed to consider themselves, with respect to commercial interests, as different provinces only of the same kingdom; it may, probably, be thought expedient to continue the acts prohibiting the exportation of unwrought brass, though the reasons which induced the legislature to pass them have long since ceased to exist. I do not enter into the inquiry, when the custom-house officers began to make a distinction between wrought and unwrought brass, so as to admit the former to an entry for exportation and not the latter; but I apprehend it was in the year 1721, when various goods and merchandizes of the product or manufactures of Great Britain were allowed, by act of parliament, to be exported free of duty; lapis calaminaris, lead, and several other articles are enumerated in the act, on which the duty was to be continued; but in this enumera. tion there is no mention made of unwrought brass, though it may properly be considered as a merchandize of the product of Great Britain; but the quantity of brass which was then made in the kingdom was so small, that it did not, probably, enter into the con. templation of the legislature to forbid an exportation, which did not seem likely ever to take place. Brass is made in various parts of Great Britain; but the Bristol, Macclesfield, and Warrington companies are the only ones, I believe, which go through all the processes of smelting the copper from its ore, of preparing the cala. mine, and of uniting it with copper for the making of brass. The trade of brass making has within these few months been much de. ranged throughout the nation, by an agreement which has been entered into by some of the principal copper companies, to the exclusion of others, to buy up all the copper of the mines now at work in the kingdom. The effect of this plan is not yet generally either felt or foreseen.

[Bishop Watson.

.

CHAP. II.

ON ORICHALCUM, AURICHALCUM, OR THE BRASS OF THE ANCIENTS.

We have a proof, from the writings of Cicero, that the Romans,

in his time, understood by the term orichalcum, a metallic substance resembling gold in colour, but very inferior to it in value. He puts the following case-" Whether, if a person should offer a piece of gold to sale, thinking that he was only disposing of a piece of orichalcum, an honest man ought to inform him that it was really gold, or might fairly buy for a penny what was worth a thousand times as much*." It is not contended, that the argument, in this place, required any great accuracy in ascertaining the relative va. lues of gold and orichalcum; yet we may reasonably conclude from it, that orichalcum might by an ignorant person be mistaken for gold, and that it was but of small estimation when compared with

it.

Julius Cæsar robbed the capitol of three thousand pound weight of gold, and substituted as much gilded copper in its stead+; in this species of sacrilege, he was followed by Vitellius, who despoiled the temples of their gifts and ornaments, replacing the gold and silver by tin and orichalcum ‡. From this circumstance also, we may collect, that the Roman orichalcum resembled gold in colour, though it was far inferior to it in value.

It is probable, that the orichalcum, here spoken of, was a metal. lic substance greatly analogous to our brass, if not wholly the same with it. The value of our brass is much less than that of gold, and the resemblance of brass to gold in colour, is obvious at first sight. Both brass and gold, indeed, are susceptible of a variety of shades of yellow; and, if very pale brass be compared with gold mixed with much copper, such as the foreign goldsmiths, especially, use in their toys, a disparity may be seen; but the nearness of the resemblance is sufficiently ascertained in general, from observing that substances gilded with brass, or, as it is commonly called, Dutch leaf, are not easily distinguished from such as are gilded with gold leaf.

The Romans were not only in possession of a metallic substance, called by them orichalcum, and resembling gold in colour, but they knew also the manner of making it; and the materials from which they made it, were the very same from which we make brass. I am sensible, that in advancing this opinion, I dissent from authors of great credit, who esteem the art of making brass to be wholly a modern invention. Thus M. Cronstedt (though I differ in opinion from him) "does not think it just to conclude, from old coins and other antiquities, that it is evidently proved, that the making of brass was known in the most ancient times *;" the authors of the French Encyclopedie assure us, that " our brass is a very recent invention i;" and Dr. Laughton ‡ says, "the vessels here called brazen, after ancient authors, cannot have been of the materials our present brass is composed of; the art of making it is a modern discovery."

Pliny, speaking of some copper which had been discovered near Corduba in the province of Andalusia in Spain, says, "this of all the kinds of copper, the Livian excepted, absorbs most cadia, and imitates the goodness of aurichalcum §." The expression, 'absorbs most cadmia,' seems to indicate, that the copper was increased in bulk, or in weight, or in both, by means of the cadmia. Now it is well known, that any definite quantity of copper is greatly increased, both in bulk and in weight, when it is made into brass by being fluxed in conjunction with calamine. The other attribute of the copper, when mixed with cadmia, was, its resembling aurichalcum. We have seen from Cicero, that the term orichalcum was applied to a substance far less valuable than gold, but similar to it in colour; and it is likely enough, that the Romans, com. monly called the mixture of copper and cadmia, orichalcum, though Pliny says, that it only resembled it; he, as a naturalist, speaking with precision, and distinguishing the real orichalcum, which in his time, he says, was no where produced, from the factitious one, which from its resemblance to it, had usurped its name.

Miner. p. 218.

+ Art. Orichalque.

Laughton's Hist. of Ancient Egypt, p. 58. § Hist. Nat. L. XXXIV. S. II.

YOL, VI,