1861.
[3] Referred to at length in the Antiquity of Man, by Sir C.Lyell, who adopts M.Worsaae's classification.
[4] Mr.Mushet, however, observes that "the general use of hardened copper by the ancients for edge-tools and warlike instruments, does not preclude the supposition that iron was then comparatively plentiful, though it is probable that it was confined to the ruder arts of life.
A knowledge of the mixture of copper, tin, and zinc, seems to have been among the first discoveries of the metallurgist.

Instruments fabricated from these alloys, recommended by the use of ages, the perfection of the art, the splendour and polish of their surfaces, not easily injured by time and weather, would not soon be superseded by the invention of simple iron, inferior in edge and polish, at all times easily injured by rust, and in the early stages of its manufacture converted with difficulty into forms that required proportion or elegance."-- (Papers on Iron and Steel, 365-6.) By some secret method that has been lost, perhaps because no longer needed since the invention of steel, the ancients manufactured bronze tools capable of taking a fine edge.

In our own time, Chantrey the sculptor, in his reverence for classic metallurgy, had a bronze razor made with which he martyred himself in shaving; but none were found so hardy and devoted as to follow his example.
[5] It may be mentioned in passing, that while Zinc is fusible at 3 degrees of Wedgwood's pyrometer, Silver at 22 degrees, Copper at 27 degrees, and Gold at 32 degrees, Cast Iron is only fusible at 130 degrees.

Tin (one of the constituents of the ancient bronze) and Lead are fusible at much lower degrees than zinc.
[6] The Romans named the other metals after the gods.

Thus Quicksilver was called Mercury, Lead Saturn, Tin Jupiter, Copper Venus, Silver Luna, and so on; and our own language has received a colouring from the Roman nomenclature, which it continues to retain.
[7] I.Samuel xiii.