like as iron [marg. brass] rusteth, so is his wickedness. Though he humble himself, and go crouching, yet take heed and beware of him, and thou shalt be unto him as if thou hadst washed a lookingglass, and thou shalt know that his rust hath not been altogether wiped away.' This passage proves, by its mention of rust, that mirrors were then made of polished metal. The fine brass of Rev. i. 15, and ch. ii. 18, is rendered by the Vulgate aurichalco, and Bochart has shown that the term aurichalcum was used by the Romans for two kinds of metals, which must not be confounded with each other; the one was native, the other factitious; the one in value almost equal to gold, the other far inferior to it. As to the more valuable of these two, though it is mentioned by Hesiod under the name oreichalcon, and by Virgil, under that of orichalco, yet it has been disputed from the days of Aristotle whether such a metal ever really existed. Pliny, who was contemporary with the apostles, is express, that there was none of it to be found for a long time before him. We may be pretty certain, therefore, that the chalkolibanon, in the Revelation, denotes the worst sort of aurichalcum, which was made of copper and ladmian earth, and therefore very nearly resembled our brass; for 'a mass of copper, fused with an equal quantity of calamine or lapis calaminaris will thereby be considerably augmented in quantity, and become by this operation yellow copper or brass. Bochart accordingly observes, that the French in his time called brass archal, by a corruption of the Latin aurichalcum, and they still use the phrase Fil d'archal for brass wire. In two or three passages our translators have rendered necheshet -steel. IRON. THIS is, without dispute, the most useful, and, consequently, the most valuable of all known metals. By its means the earth has been cultivated and subdued, houses have been built, cities have been constructed, ships have been formed, machinery has been generated, and nations have been enriched. Iron is seldom found in a native state, being generally mineralized with some acid, and assuming the form of ore. It is evident from Deut. viii. 9, that Palestine abounded with mines of this metal, though we believe they are not known to exist at present in any part of the country except Lebanon. Our ignorance of their existence, however, is owing to the jealousy of the Arabs, who will suffer no traveller to examine beneath the surface of the earth, lest he should possess himself of any treasure which may be there concealed! It is evident from the earliest books of the Old Testament, that iron was used in the time of Moses, not only for offensive and defensive weapons, but also for articles of domestic use. Indeed, its use was evidently known to the antediluvian patriarchs, who were instructed in the art of metallurgy by Tubal Cain, Gen. iv. 22. Since iron requires the strongest fire of all metals to fuse it, there is a peculiar propriety, says Parkhurst, in the expression, 'a furnace for iron, or an iron furnace,' for violent and sharp afflictions, Deut. iv. 20; 1 Kings viii. 51. LEAD. NEXT to gold and mercury, lead is the heaviest of metalline substances; but in hardness it is exceeded by all of them. It is of a pale and livid grey color, not sonorous when pure, and extremely flexible. The most common state in which it is procured from the mine, is in combination with sulphur and a small quantity of silver, from which it is separated by passing through a smelting furnace, in which it is reduced to a fluid state. There is a singular passage in Jer. vi. 28-30: 'They are all copper and iron; they are corrupt. The bellows are burned, being consumed by the fire; the lead (used to purify the ore) is vanished; the refiner melteth in vain; but the wicked (or perhaps the bad heterogeneous matters) are not separated; (and this being the case) reprobate (or refuse) silver shall they be called, for Jehovah hath rejected them.' From Job xix. 23, 24, we see that lead was in early use as a material for inscribing such things upon as it was wished to preserve for a long period of time. Several books of lead have been found in eastern countries. In 2 Kings ix. 30, and Jer. iv. 30, there is a substance spoken of, which was used by females for the purpose of coloring their eyes, called pouk, and which is generally thought to be either the powder of lead ore, or the plumbago of black lead. Shaw and Russell state, that the former of these is used for this purpose, by the women of Barbary and Aleppo. TIN. THIS metal, so useful for a variety of purposes in the present day, was also known in the time of Moses, who distinctly notices it in his enumeration of the six kinds of metal, in Numb. xxxi. 22. Silver, of all the metals, suffers most from an admixture of tin, a very small quantity serving to make that metal as brittle as glass, and what is worse, being with great difficulty separated from it again. The very vapor of tin has the same effect as the metal itself, on silver, gold, and copper, rendering them brittle. Hence we may see, says Parkhurst, the propriety of Jehovah's denunciation, by the prophet Isaiah, chap. i. 25; for having, at the 22d verse, compared the Jewish people to silver, he declares at verse 25, I will turn my hand upon thee, and purge away thy dross, and remove all thy particles of tin; where Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and the Vulgate read, thy tin; but the LXX. read wicked ones. This denunciation, however, by a comparison of the preceding and following context, appears to signify that God would, by a process of judgment, purify those among the Jews who were capable of purification, as well as destroy the reprobate and incorrigible. Comp. Jer. vi. 29, 30; ix. 7; Ezek. xxii. 18, 20; Mal. iii. 3. In Ezek. xxvii. 12, Tarshish is mentioned as furnishing tin, which country is, on the authority of Bochart, generally believed to be the ancient Tartessus in Spain.' |