Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/330

 Chap.lX. O F MA NCHESTER. ±99 been unddubtedly ere&ed before, one perhaps within the, con- fines of every kingdom and moft probably in the vicinity of every capital. One at leafl muft have been neceffary in order tcr fiipply the armoury of the principality: and one perhaps was. Efficient for moft of the Britifh dates. But feveral appear ta liive been now eftablifhed within every principality, and one per- haps near every ftatibnary town. Two of thefe forges have been discovered in the fingle county of Eflbx and within a narrow portion of It, one of them at Fifield, and the other at DatH bury 4 *. And a third was placed upon Earfley Moor in York* fhire, twelve miles to the north-weft of York and in the neigh* bourhood of Ifurium or Aldborough «. A brafs kettle, the workmanfhip in all probability of a Britifh or Roman-Britifh foundcry in the neighbourhood of Mancheiter* was fome years ago difepvered in one of our Mancunian njoflbs* and is how lodged among the petty curiofities of our Mancunian library. It is about five inches and a half in di»ro$ter and two* and a half in depth, and is fitted with a flat handle of brafs, And the metal of this Ikillet, like the metal of the Britifh coins and the Britifh battle-axes, is mixed with a quantity of lead. Such a mixture was requifite to make the brafs fufficiently obe- dient to the worker's tool. The proportion of the temperature was the fame in Italy and Gaul, being eight pounds of lead tq one hundred of brafs 4 % and nearly quadrating with the. proppr- tibnobferved at prefent. . But the palenefs of the metal in, the axes the coins and the ikillet evinces the. proportion in Britain to have been very different. And the lead of al} muft be nearly as Dr. Richafdfon. has eft i mated it to be iq foipae, one full third of the whole cbmpofition 4 }. '»j
 * .* Cicero 1 * Fam. Epift. lib. vii. E, 7, and Sidoniqs Apollinaris

(Strmondus) carmen 23 and lin. 306 and 351. — * Borlafe's Coins N° 22, and Camden clafs 2. N° 20. — J Oifian vol. I. p. 11. — - 4 Stukeley'sStonehenge p. 44 and plate, Borlafe p. 233 and plate 18, and Wright" s Louthiana b. iii. plate 2. — s B, I. ch. vii. f. 2. Q q 2 6 Strabo