Though it must be confessed that this passage of Pliny cannot be fully understood by any explanation, it proves to conviction that the stannum of the ancients was neither our tin nor a peculiar metal, but the werk of our smelting-houses. This was long ago remarked by those writers who were acquainted with metallurgy, of whom I shall here mention Agricola[509], Encelius[510], Fallopius[511], Savot[512], Bernia[513], and Jung[514].
The ancients used, as a peculiar metal, a mixture of gold and silver, because they were not acquainted with the art of separating them, and afterwards gave it the name of electrum. In the like manner they employed werk or stannum, which was obtained almost in the same manner in the fusion of silver. In all probability it was employed before people became acquainted with the art of separating these two metals, and continued in use through habit, even after a method of separating them was discovered. If the ore subjected to fusion was abundant in silver, this mixture approached near to the noble metals; if poor in silver, it consisted chiefly of lead. When it consisted of silver and lead only, it was soft and ductile; but if other metals, difficult of fusion, such as copper, iron, or zinc, were intermixed, it was harder and more brittle, and in that case approached nearer to what the German silver refiners call abzug and abstrich.
That this stannum was employed as an article of commerce, and that the ancients made of it vessels of various kinds, cannot be doubted. The vasa stannea however may be considered as vessels which were covered with tin only in the inside; for that this was customary I shall prove hereafter. In general, these vasa stannea are named where mention is made of saline or oily things, or such as would readily acquire a taste and smell from other metals, were they boiled or preserved in them for any length of time[515].
It has been long ago remarked that most of the Roman vessels were made of copper, and that these people were acquainted with the art of tinning or silvering them; but that tinned vessels have never been found, and silvered ones very rarely. Hence so many things appear to have been made of what is called bronze, which is less liable to acquire that dangerous rust or oxide, known under the name of verdigris, than pure copper. This bronze is sometimes given out as Corinthian and sometimes Syracusan brass, as the gold-coloured coins of the first size were considered to be Corinthian brass also. But in my opinion, a great and perhaps the greater part of all these things were made of stannum, properly so called, which by the admixture of the noble metals, and some difficult of fusion, was rendered fitter for use than pure copper. We are told by Suetonius, that the emperor Vitellius took away all the gold and silver from the temples and substituted in their stead aurichalcum and stannum[516].
Whether the Greeks worked stannum, and under what name, I do not know: perhaps we ought to class here the κασσιτέρινα of the oldest times, of which I shall speak hereafter.
What I have already said in regard to werk will be rendered more certain by the circumstance, that even two centuries ago, vessels of all kinds called halbwerk were made of it in Germany. This we are told by Encelius[517] as a thing well-known in his time, which however I should wish to see further examined. I have searched in vain for this name in a great many works of the sixteenth century; but I have long entertained an idea, which I shall take this opportunity of mentioning:—Among the oldest church vessels I have seen some articles which I considered to be vasa stannea, I mean such as when newly scoured and polished had a silvery brightness, and when they remained long without being cleaned acquired a dull gray colour, and a greater weight than bronze. Those who show these things commonly say that the method of composing the metal is lost; but that it contains silver, and according to the assertion of many, even gold. Such articles deserve, undoubtedly, to be examined by our chemists.
I shall further remark, on this subject, that the abstrich, as it is called, which in many respects has a resemblance to stannum, and contains also lead and silver, but at the same time metals difficult of fusion, is employed in the arts, and collected for the use of the letter-founders[518]. For this purpose it is well-adapted, on account of its hardness and durability; and in want of it lead must be mixed with regulus of antimony. At the Lower Harze the workmen began so early as 1688 to revive this abstrich in particular; and as the lead thence obtained, on account of its hardness, could not be disposed of like common lead, it was sold to the letter-founders at Brunswick, at first at the rate of a hundred weight for two and a half dollars, and in the year 1689 for three dollars. But in Schlüter’s time a small quantity of it only was made annually, because the abstrich could be used with more advantage for other purposes. This lead, says Schlüter, had the appearance of bronze, and was so brittle, that a piece of it broke into fragments when struck[519].
Speise also, which is obtained at the blue colour-works, can be employed in the same manner. Under this term is understood a metallic mixture deposited during the preparation of blue glass, and which is composed of various metals combined with cobalt, but particularly nickel, iron, copper, arsenic, and perhaps also bismuth. It is hard, brittle, sonorous, and assumes a good polish, though it is not always of the same quality in all manufactories. As it contains some colouring particles, it is in general again added to the glass residuum. But when I lately paid a visit to the colour-mill at Carlshafen, M. Birnstein the inspector told me, that the speise was manufactured at Halle into buttons of every kind. This probably is the case there in those button-manufactories established by G. H. Schier, in which buttons of all patterns are made annually to the value of 30,000 dollars[520]. The ancients, in my opinion, employed in a similar manner the werk of their silver smelting-houses.
I shall now proceed to examine that metal which the Greeks named κασσίτερος, or, as Pliny says, Cassiteron, and which he expressly adds was called by the Latins plumbum candidum (white lead). I have no new hypothesis to recommend; my sole object is truth. I wish for certainty, and, when that is not to be obtained, probability; at the same time, however, I cannot rest satisfied with the judgement given by the compilers of dictionaries, and the translators and commentators of ancient authors, because I firmly believe that they never made any researches themselves on the subject.
That the ancients were acquainted with our tin as early as we find the word cassiteros mentioned by them, I am not able to prove, and I doubt whether it is possible to do so; the contrary seems to me to be more probable. In my opinion, it was impossible for the Phœnicians, at so early a period, to obtain this metal from Portugal, Spain, and England, in such quantity that it could be spread all over the old world. The carriage of merchandise was not then so easy. If all the cassiteron was procured from the north-west parts of Europe, it appears to me that it must have been much dearer than it seems to have been in the oldest times, to judge from the information that has been preserved.