[300] Masc. and fem.; the neut. ἤλεκτρον is the purest form. Dr. Schliemann, noticing that it also means ‘amber’ (Mycenæ, p. 204), derives it from ‘elek, signifying resin in Arabic (?), and probably also in Phœnician (?).’ He found earrings of electrum in the so-called ‘Trojan Stratum,’ 30½ feet below the surface (Troy, p. 164). The guanin or gianin of the Chiriquis was an aururet (electrum) of 19·3 per cent. of pure gold, with specific gravity 11·55. The tombac or tombag of New Granada, used for statuettes, was also a gold of low standard: 63 gold, 24 silver, 9 copper. Usually ‘tombac’ applies to an alloy like Mannheim gold; the manufacture was introduced into Birmingham, still its chief seat, by the Turner family, a.d. 1740.
[301] ‘Elektron,’ however, is generally translated ‘amber’; and it may be the harpax, or drawer, for it occurs in the same verse with ivory. Amber beads and weapon-handles were amongst Dr. Schliemann’s finds. Rossignol (p. 347) supposes that electrum, the pale-yellow or amber-coloured alloy of gold and silver, gave a name to the gum amber.
[302] This text, stating a truth concerning native gold, suggests amongst many that the ancients knew the départ, or separation, of metals. It has been vehemently doubted whether they could mineralise the white metal; that is, convert it to sulphide and allow the gold to subside.
[303] Rossignol quotes Zonaras, Suidas, and John Pediasimus to prove this position.
[304] We now lacquer with shell-lac dissolved in proof-spirit and coloured with ‘dragon’s blood.’
[305] The lead was found in even larger proportions. See chap. xiii.
[306] In my commentary on Camoens (Camoens: his Life and his Lusiads), and again in To the Gold Coast for Gold (i. 17), I have attempted to identify Western Tarshish or Tartessus with Carteia in the Bay of Gibraltar. Newton makes Melcarth ‘King of Carteia’; but the word may mean either ‘city-king’ (Malik-el-Karyat), or ‘earth-king’ (Malik-el-Arz).
[307] The well-known anthropologist, M. G. de Mortillet, holds that the oldest type of bronze celt in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, is that with straight flanges at the sides. This was followed by the celt with transverse stop-ridge, by the true winged tool, by the socketed adaptation, and, lastly, by the simple flat tool wanting rib or flange, wing or socket, and formed of pure copper as well as of bronze. Archæologists usually determine the last form to be the earliest; but M. de Mortillet judges otherwise from the conditions under which the finds occur.
[308] This weapon (gladius) is a Sword-blade, double-edged or single-edged, straight or curved, and 4–9 inches long, much used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It originated from the old practice of binding the sickle, scythe, axe, hatchet, or Sword to the end of a pole and thus forming a pike.
[309] The Amazons of the Mausoleum (Newton, Halicarnassus, p. 235) are armed with axe, bow, and Sword; the Greeks with javelins and Swords.