were the lowest order in society but that of
the shepherds, poulterers, and fishermen;
but that they were skilful in brass-working,
among other arts, we know by Moses having
so much brass about the Tabernacle in the
Wilderness, which, no doubt, the Egyptians
who went with him helped to make, after
having taught their art to the Hebrew bondsmen.
The fastenings of the curtains were of
brass; and so were the sockets of the pillars,—
as we read in the thirty-sixth and thirty-
eighth chapters of Exodus; and the great laver
or reservoir was also of brass. Considering all
this, and the use the Greeks made of brass,
and after them the Romans, who actually got
the tin for the mixture from our own island;
it does appear strange that no brass should
have been made in England till two hundred
years ago. In Germany, it had been made
for centuries; and we must suppose that we
got from thence what we wanted; for there
was none made here till 1649, when a
German came over, and settled at Esher in
Surrey, and there began to show us how
to melt copper and zinc (or spelter, as
the merchants call it) together, to produce
that beautiful, yellow, glittering metal, with
which we make our chandeliers and door-
plates, and bed-castors, and statues, and cast
our bells, and mount our telescopes. Ah!
none but those who have seen it wrought
can tell how beautiful it is, before it is spoiled
with the varnish we are obliged to put on,
to prevent its tarnishing! If its virgin tint
could be preserved, it would be the most
beautiful, perhaps, of all metals.

From the time of that German, who settled
at Esher, to our own, our artificers have been
prevented from making our brass work so
good, or so cheap, as it might naturally have
been. The good man and his successors got
from abroad most of the copper they wanted;
this led to our searching out what we had at
home. It was found that we had plenty;
so much, that we could send a great deal
abroad. Heavy duties were laid on foreign
copper, and we were thus compelled to use
our own. It is very good; but it is made
very much better by being mixed with other
kinds from abroad. By free trade, we now
have this advantage. We get copper from
Australia and from South America; and
zinc, or spelter, from Siberia; and mix in
our own copper, and make an article so good
as to command a great foreign sale. The
cost of producing it is, as far as the metal
is concerned, equalised with that of foreign
countries; and thus we have at once a better
and a cheaper article, and an extending trade
abroad.

There are few of our manufactures prettier
to the eye of a visitor than brass-founding.
The name does not promise much; and the
greater, therefore, is the pleasure. There is
so much variety in it, that little notion of it
can be given in the space of half-a-dozen
pages; but what we can tell in that space we
will. As we like having the best of everything,
when it can be fairly had, we were
thankful to be permitted to go over the
establishment of the present Mayor of
Birmingham, with the honour of having the
Mayor himself for our guide—the hardest-
worked man in Birmingham just now,
probably, but as patient in explaining and
informing as if he had nothing else to do.

The mixing of the metals tells itself, for the
most part. The mould for the ingots stands
at our feet, in a shed where the copper is
melted in the furnace, in pots of Stourbridge
clay. As there is no night-work here, no
keeping up the heat continuously, as is done
in glass-houses, these pots do not last as their
larger and more important brethren do. They
are creatures of a day; to-morrow but a heap
of sherds, to help to make a new generation.
The spelter does not need to be melted in
pots: it melts, like sugar in tea, by being
merely stirred in the hot liquid. This is
because a lower degree of heat will melt zinc
than is required by copper. Here comes the
flaming hot jar of copper, carried by a man
well armed with the necessary tongs; another
man stands ready with the piece of spelter.
He puts it in, stirs it round to mix it
thoroughly, and is not, as we are surprised to
see, suffocated on the spot by the fumes.
There is the beautiful flame! and we have
more of it, flickering and sparkling as the
mixture flows, red hot, into the moulds,
whence it will come out as ingots. Those
light grey flakes in the air are the sublimated
zinc. After a whirl or two towards the
rafters, out they go at window and door!
We ask, what are the proportions of the two
metals? and we find that the mixture is
varied, according to its destination. The
particular ingots at our feet are two parts of
copper to one of zinc, because the brass is
intended for common articles. If for finer
purposes, there would be more copper. If
particular hardness or toughness is required,
or if the metal must be sonorous, or of a
specified, colour, tin, lead, iron, or other metals,
must be mixed with the copper. For hinges,
drawer-handles, brass-nails, and, we suppose,
warming-pans, and kitchen-candlesticks, this
mixture of two to one is the right thing.
We must remember that the brass we see
made here is only for castings. The tubing
for chandeliers, &c., and the plates for stamping
and pressing, are prepared elsewhere, by
those who make metal-tubing, and have an
establishment of rolling-mills. We see here
plenty of sheets of brass, and abundance of
tubing; and there are stamping, and punching,
and drilling machines, and very pretty
work turned out by them; but these things
have been described before, and we now, therefore,
apply ourselves to the study of the
castings.

For ornamental works, the process begins
in a very different place from a raftered shed,
among furnaces and clay pots. It may be in