BRASS, or, as the French call it, yellow copper, is a factitious metal, composed of copper and zinc. See CHEMISTRY INDEX, and BRASS, SUPPLEMENT.
The first formation of brass, as we are assured by scripture, was prior to the flood, and discovered even in the seventh generation from Adam*. But the use of it was not, as is generally believed, and the Arundelian marbles assert, previous to the knowledge of iron. They were both first known in the same generation, and first wrought by the same discoverer. And the knowledge of them must have been equally carried over the world afterwards, with the spreading of the colonies of the Noachide. An acquaintance with the one or the other was absolutely necessary to the existence of the colonists; the clearing away of the woods about their settlements, and the erection of houses for their habitation.
The ancient Britons, though acquainted from the remotest periods with the use of both these metals, remained long ignorant that they were to be obtained in the island. Before this discovery they imported all their iron and brass from the continent. And when they had at length detected the former in their own hills, and had ceased to introduce it, they continued to receive the latter. Their want of the metal remained, and no mines of it were opened in the island. In the earliest ages whose manners have been delineated by history, we find the weapons of their warriors invariably framed of this factitious metal; and the most au-
thentic of all the profane records of antiquity, the Arundelian marbles, for that reason, mistakenly date the first discovery of iron a couple of centuries below the Trojan war. Every military nation, as such, is naturally studious of brightness in its arms; and the Britons, particularly, gloried in the neatness of theirs. For this reason the nations of the world still fabricated their arms of brass, even long after the Arundelian era for the discovery of iron; and the Britons continued to import it from the continent, though they had found iron to be a native of the country, and could have supplied themselves with a sufficient quantity of it.
Mr Whitaker* supposes, that when the Britons deprived their iron and brass from the continent, they pursued the latter at an easier expence than the former. The Gauls had many large brass works carried on in the kingdom, but seem to have had but few iron forges within it. And this would naturally induce the Belgæ to be less diligent in their inquiry after the veins of copper and calamine at home, than for the courses of iron ore; though the one was equally discoverable in the island as the other, and lay equally within the Belgic regions of it. Brass being thus cheaper than iron, they necessarily formed with it some domestic as well as military implements. Such were common among the Gauls; and such were familiar to the Britons, either imported into the island, as some actually were, or manufactured within it, as others also assuredly were. The Britons had certainly brass foundries erected among them, and minted money and fabricated weapons of brass.
In this condition of the works, the Romans entered the island. And seeing so great a demand among the natives for this article, they would speedily instruct them to discover the materials of it among themselves. This must unavoidably have resulted from the conquest of the Romans. The power of surprising their new subjects with so unexpected a discovery would naturally stimulate the pride of the Roman intellect; and the desire of obliging themselves with so cheap a supply of that useful metal, stationary as they were in that kingdom, would also equally actuate the selfishness of the Roman breast. The veins of copper and calamine would be easily found out by any experienced inquirer after them; and the former metal is therefore distinguished among the Welsh, only by the Roman appellation of cyprium, kopp, or copper. And many foundries of brass appear to have been established in the island. Some had been erected before, one perhaps within the confines of every kingdom, and probably in the vicinity of every capital. One at least would be necessary, in order to supply the armoury of the principality; and one perhaps was sufficient for most of the British states. But several appear now to have been settled in every kingdom, and one perhaps near every stationary town. Two have been discovered in the single county of Essex, and within a narrow portion of it, at Fifield and Danbury. And a third was placed upon Easterly Moor in Yorkshire, 12 miles to the north-west of York, and in the neighbourhood of Isurium or Aldborough.
Corinthian Brass, famous in antiquity, is a mixture of gold, silver, and copper. L. Mummius having sacked and burnt the city of Corinth, 146 years before Christ, it is said this metal was formed from the immense quantities of gold, silver, and copper, wherewith
Brass. that city abounded, thus melted and run together by the violence of the conflagration.