Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/115

 determine its qualities; two are to be seen in the British museum. Of these there is the bust of a Philosopher, of, apparently, antient and very dry workmanship: the other is the celebrated Discobulus. It is known that Myron the Athenian, who flourished about 440 A.C. executed a work of this character in bronze: but we have no evidence respecting the marble statue, and artists have therefore remained in doubt whether it was executed by himself or was a copy by another hand. This question cannot be positively decided by the sculpture itself, however high its merits. In the mean time a step is gained by the mineralogical investigation of the material, and thus mineralogy is capable of throwing light on the history of the arts. The substance in which it is wrought must therefore be considered a sufficient proof of the antiquity of the copy, if it be such, as well as of its having been executed at Athens, since the quarries of Pentelicus were abandoned in consequence of their defects, as soon as those of Carrara and Luna were known. Although it is difficult or impossible to determine this period, yet as so few works in Pentelic marble posterior to the time of Phidias and of Myron have descended to us, it is probable that little use was made of those quarries after the period of these artists. We are therefore, perhaps, entitled to conclude that the Discobulus of the Townley collection is an Athenian work of the best age of sculpture, and not a copy by any more modern artist; and that if it was executed neither by Myron himself nor under his direction, it is yet not likely to have been much inferior to the original, while it may serve, at the same time, as some proof of the esteem in which that work was held at Athens.

But the most numerous examples of Pentelic marble are to be found in those works of Phidias which form the collection of Lord Elgin, and which afford easy access to examination. In the