MĔTALLUM

( μέταλλον ), a mine and metal . The metals which have been known from the earliest period of which we have any information are those which were long distinguished as the seven principal metals, namely, gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, lead, and mercury. If to this list we add the compound of gold and silver called electrum , the compound of copper and tin called χαλκός and aes (bronze), and steel, we have, in all probability, a complete list of the metals known to the Greeks and Romans, with the exception of zinc, which they do not seem to have known as a metal, but only in its ores, and of bra , which, they regarded as a sort of bronze. The early Greeks were no doubt chiefly indebted for a supply of the various metals to the commerce of the Phoenicians, who procured them principally from Arabia and Spain, and tin from our own island and the East. They were perfectly acquainted with the proce es of smelting the metal from the ore, and of forging heated ma es into the required shapes, by the aid of the hammer and tongs. The smith’s instruments were the anvil ( ἄκμων ) with the block on which it rested ( ἀκμόθετον ), the tongs ( πυράγρη ) and the hammer ( ῥαιστήρ , σφῦρα ). The advances made in the art of metallurgy in subsequent times are chiefly connected with the improvements in the art of statuary. The method of working, as described in Homer, seems to have long prevailed, namely by beating out lumps of the material into the form proposed, and afterwards fitting the pieces together by means of pins or keys. It was called σφυρήλατον , from σφῦρα , a hammer. The next mode, among the Greeks, of executing metal works seems to have been by plating upon a nucleus, or general form, of wood—a practice which was employed also by the Egyptians. It is extremely difficult to determine at what date the casting of metal was introduced. According to the statements of Pausanias and Pliny, the art of casting in bronze and in iron was invented by Rhoecus and The odor us of Samos, who probably lived in the sixth and fifth centuries before our era.