ĒLECTRUM

( ἤλεκτρος and ἤλεκτρον ), is used by the ancient writers in two different senses, either for amber or for a mixture of metals composed of gold and silver. In Homer and Hesiod, it has, in all probability, the former meaning. The earliest pa age of any Greek writer, in which the word is certainly used for the metal, is in the Anti gone of Sophocles (1038). This alludes to native electrum ; but the compound was also made artificially. Pliny states that when gold contains a fifth part of silver, it is called electrum ; that it is found in veins of gold; and that it is also made by art: if, he adds, it contains more than a fifth of silver, it becomes too brittle to be malleable. But Isidorus mentions electrum composed of three parts gold, and one of silver. Electrum was used for plate, and the other similar purposes for which gold and silver were employed. It was also used as a material for money. Lamp rid i us tells us, that Alexander Severus struck coins of it; and coins are in existence, of this metal, struck by the kings of Bosporus, by Syracuse, and by other Greek states.