The word brass must be here understood as being synonymous with bronze, and certainly the Hebrew term had this signification.
As a specially remarkable object of bronze work, we may mention the "sea of brass" of the Hebrews, which contained 3000 measures of water.
Herodotus[30] speaks of another colossal basin made of bronze, which was sixty times the size of that which Pausanias, son of Cleobrontos, presented to the temple of Jupiter Orios, a temple which had been built near the Euxine, on the borders of Scythia. Its capacity was six hundred amphoræ, and it was six "fingers" in thickness. The Greeks used to employ these enormous basins in their religious ceremonies.
In Sweden and Norway, large receptacles of a similar kind were in primitive ages employed in sacrificial ceremonies; they used to receive the blood which flowed from the slaughtered animals.
In order to produce objects of this magnitude it was of course necessary to have at disposal large foundries of bronze. These foundries, which existed during historic periods, were preceded by others of less importance used during the pre-historic epochs which we are considering, that is, during the bronze epoch.
Vestiges of these ancient foundries have been discovered in Switzerland, at Devaine, near Thonon, and at Walflinger, near Wintherthur; especially also at Echallens, where objects have been found which evidently originated from the working of some pre-historic foundry.
At Morges, in Switzerland, a stone mould has been discovered, intended for casting hatchets. By running bronze into this ancient mould, a hatchet has been made exactly similar to some of those in our collections.
The casting was also effected in moulds of sand, which is the more usual and more easy plan.
From these data, it is possible to imagine what sort of place a foundry must have been during the bronze epoch.