Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/438

410 bronzes made by Phillips, and subsequently carried on by Von Bibra, and Von Fellenberg, that the oldest (see the above tables) were composed essentially of tin and copper. Subsequently lead was added in the coinage (æs, semis, quadrans) of the Republic, and in the Greek coinage after B.C. 400. "Zinc makes its appearance a short time previous to the Christian era, and is continued in all the subsequent coins, although "occasionally associated with lead and tin, until it almost entirely disappears in the small brass of the period of the Thirty Tyrants." Bronze therefore is more ancient than brass, and the terms æs,, and "brass" in the Bible, imply the former and not the latter alloy. The shield of Achilles was made by Hephaistus, of copper, tin, gold, and silver mingled together in the furnace. The oldest seats of bronze-founding among the Greeks were Delos, Ægina, and Corinth.

The uniformity of the composition of the cutting implements of the Bronze age implies that the art of compounding tin with copper was discovered in one place, from which the knowledge of it spread over nearly the whole of Europe and Asia, and the greater part of the Americas. Had it spread from separate centres, this uniformity would have been impossible. The bronze implements of ancient Peru and Mexico, although separated by such a vast distance from the parts of Asia