ANTIQUITY OF COPPER. — USE OF IT AMONG THE ANCIENTS. OLDEST COINS.COPPER MINES OF ENGLAND AND OTHER THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES. COUNTRIES. NATIVE COPPER. HOW IT IS WORKED. OVERTHROWING A MASS. A LUMP WEIGHING EIGHT HUNDRED TONS. MALACHITE. It is ONE of the first metals known to man was copper. related in Scripture that Tubal Cain was "an instructor of every artificer in brass and in iron." In the book of Job we read that "copper is molten out of the stone." It is recorded in Egyptian history that the Emperor Cheops worked a copper mine in Sinai. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with copper, and the Syrians, Phoenicians, and also the Greeks and Romans, used a great deal of it in the manufacture of monuments and statues of bronze. The Colossus of Rhodes, after lying in the sand for nine hundred years, is said to have required nearly a thousand camels to convey its pieces away. The ancients seem to have worked copper mines very extensively, and their facilities for making large castings were quite equal to those of modern times. Copper was known in America to the races that inhabited this continent before the Indians had any knowledge of it, as appears from the various utensils of copper found in the ancient mounds of the Western country and the extensive mining works along the shores of Lake Superior. The Mexicans and Peruvians had many tools of copper, and it is a curious fact that these tools are almost identical in composition with the tools found at Thebes and other points along the Nile. A chisel found in a silver mine in Peru contained ninety-four per cent. copper, five per cent. tin, and one per cent. iron. 818 EXTENT OF COPPER MINES. Cupper was used for money at a very early period. Some coins are in existence supposed to be twenty-five hundred years old. They contain from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of copper, and the residue is made up of tin, lead, and zinc. The mines which supply the copper of commerce are situated in almost all parts of the world. Many of them are worked by English companies, and made tributary to the great smelting establishments at Swansea, in Wales. It is easier to carry ores to the localities where coal is mined, than it is to carry the coal to the copper mines. The great value of many copper ores admits of their transportation from the interior of countries to the sea-coast, and their shipment thence by sea to the place where they can be reduced with the greatest economy. In America there are many smelting works on various parts of the coast, and at some interior points, but none of them are as extensive as the English ones. Many copper mines are worked on the Andes, particularly in Chili and Peru. Central America and Mexico contain many mines, some of them of great value. Copper deposits are scattered throughout the United States, all the way from New England to California, though comparatively few of them are valuable. There are copper mines of great value and world-wide celebrity in Cornwall, England. Other parts of the British Isles produce this metal. There are valuable copper mines in Germany, Sweden, and Norway, and the mines of the Ural Mountains of Russia are among the richest on the globe. In 1830 the copper production of Great Britain was more than half the entire copper production of the world. Copper mining in other parts of the world was not extensively prosecuted; but subsequently the industry increased so rapidly that twenty-five years later the amount of copper produced in Great Britain, though not less in quantity, was only one fourth of that of the entire globe. Occasionally circumstances give a great impetus to copper mining. For instance, in 1866, the war between Chili and Spain cut off the copper supply from the former country, and |