BRONZE AND BRONZING. THE substance called bronze is an alloy, and consists of the two metals copper and tin, to which a little zinc and lead are sometimes added. These metals have been, and are still used, in various proportions; so that the term bronze, in its common acceptation, is with propriety applied to every alloy of copper and tin, to which other metals may or may not be added in small proportions, so as to secure the necessary properties. It is well known, to those who have occasion to cast metals, that the character of an alloy will be entirely changed, by the addition of a comparatively minute quantity of some other substance; an exceedingly brittle compound may be made tenacious, and a soft one hard. But if this statement be true, it will be evident, that the varieties of bronze may have very different qualities, which we well know to be the case; for the same substance, with different admixtures, is employed for the manufacture of bells, cannon, medals, and the casting of sculptures, as well as other purposes. The ancients were acquainted with the art of casting bronze statues. Pliny informs us, that the art of modelling was invented by Theodorus and Ræcus, of Samos, who lived about seven hundred years before Christ; and the same persons may be supposed to have introduced the art of casting bronze statues. We may easily imagine, that this process was not quickly brought to perfection, for many experiments must have been made, before the proper proportions of the metals could be determined. But the Greeks, knowing that by mixing tin with copper a compound more fusible than copper alone was formed, and that the substance itself was more durable and harder, could not long remain in ignorance of a suitable admixture of these metals. We find, in fact, that they soon arrived at great excellence in this art, and bronze statues increased greatly in number, and in the beauty of workmanship. We may gain some idea of the vast number of bronze statues erected by the Greeks, from the fact, that the Roman consul, Mutianus, found three thousand in Athens, and as many were collected at Delphi, Olympia, and Rhodes. To obtain a good bronze is of great importance in the arts, and much attention has been therefore given to the subject by modern chemists, and those per sons engaged in manufactures where bronze is required. The Kellers, who were the most celebrated founders in the time of Louis XIV., made many experiments, and acquired great skill; so that their most important works remain as models to the present day. The following are the metals, and their proportions, used in the bronze statue of Louis xv.: copper, 82.45; zinc, 10.30; tin, 410; lead, 3.15. When a proper proportion for the constituent substances has been obtained, there will still be a necessity for great care, in their fusion. The metal should be brought into a liquid state as rapidly as possible, so as to prevent a loss from the different degrees of oxidization; and those metals which are most susceptible of change from the action of fire, should be added last. As soon as the entire mass has been melted, and the ingredients have been thoroughly united by agitation, it should be poured into the moulds. The cooling should then be promoted by every possible means, or the several metals may separate again, according to their several densities, and layers of metal result, in place of an alloy. The bronze for medals which are to be struck is composed of from 88 to 92 parts of copper, and from 8 to 12 of tin, with about 2 or 3 parts of zinc in the hundred, which will give to the alloy a richer tint. Cannon are made of about 91 parts of copper to 9 of tin. In To give any bronze figure the appearance of an antique, it must be washed with a liquid composition, which may be formed in the following manner. about fourteen ounces of white vinegar, dissolve two drachms of sal ammoniac, and half a drachm of the salt of sorrel. It may be applied to small articles, with a camel's hair pencil, and it will be found desirable to warm the cast before applying the solution. The alloy used for the mirrors of reflecting telescopes, has so great a resemblance in composition, to the bronzes of which we have been speaking, that it may be here mentioned. The writer once undertook the formation of a Newtonian reflector for his own amusement; and after many experiments, fixed upon one part of tin, to two parts and a fraction of copper, with a small quantity of arsenic in every casting. The metal thus formed was white, brilliant, hard, and brittle, and took an excellent polish. Y We will now proceed to make a few remarks upon the art of bronzing, or, in other words, of giving to ornaments, sculptured figures, or other objects, the same appearance as though they were formed of bronze. This is to be done by washing the article with a liquid or paste, which may be made in the following manner. Take a small quantity of size, or oil varnish, and with it mix a powder formed from gold leaf, Dutch foil, or precipitated copper. With this paste, the article to be bronzed is covered, the composition being laid on with a brush. Some artists prefer using the size or varnish alone, smearing the article with it, and then applying the dry powder, burnishing such parts as seem to require the metallic lustre, and covering the whole, when completed, with a coat of spirit varnish. The term bronzing is sometimes used in a very extensive sense, being applied to every method of giving a metallic character or lustre to substances which are naturally destitute of the property. In this sense we shall employ the word, and proceed to give the reader some methods of producing different effects, leaving him to test their accuracy by experiment, which he may easily do, and at the same time provide himself with some prettily decorated ornaments and specimens of art. To form an antique bronze.—In twelve measures of hot water, dissolve one of sal ammoniac, three of cream of tartar, and six of common salt. To this solution add eight parts of the nitrate of copper. A modern bronze, when washed several times with this composition, receives a beautiful green tint, similar to that of an antique. To give a white metallic appearance to plaster casts, rub them with an amalgam of mercury, bismuth, and tin, these metals being united in equal proportions. The effect being produced, may be heightened and retained, by the application of a coat of varnish, smoothly laid on with a brush. In the arts and manufactures of all countries, there is yearly used an immense quantity of bronze powders, for the purpose of being applied to articles of furniture and ironware. They are of various sorts, and of some we shall give a description, commencing with the aurum musivum, which is a peculiar chemical preparation of tin, and may be made in the following manner. If two ounces of tin be melted in a crucible, and an equal quantity of sulphur be added to it, a sulphuret of tin will be formed, which may be poured out upon a cold stone, and powdered. Add to this compound one ounce of sal ammoniac, and grind the whole thoroughly in a mortar. Then divide the entire quantity into three equal parts, and place each part in a glass vessel, called by chemists a matrass, submitting them severally to the heat of a sand-bath. The sal ammoniac will, by the action of the heat, be sublimed in the neck of the glass vessels, and the aurum musivum will remain at the bottom, in the form of a spongy mass, of a dullish gold colour. The brilliancy will be greatly increased when reduced to a powder. The Dutch have long been famous for the preparation of powder bronzes of various tints and colours, from a metallic scarlet to a pale straw. They are prepared from thin beaten leaves of the alloys of copper, in various proportions, mixed with some mucilaginous or gummy substance, and ground under a stone and muller. They are exceedingly beautiful and brilliant, and used in many of the arts. A white bronze is also prepared, to represent silver, which is a preparation of tin and mercury, ground in the same manner. A very elegant and extremely deceptive method of bronzing plaster is as follows: but it will perhaps be found desirable, previous to commencing the bronzing, to harden the plaster figure, whatever it may be, by steeping it in a solution of alum. When perfectly dry, it may be covered with one or two coats of size, and a brownish olive tint of turpentine paint. When this last coat has dried, the green cankerous appearance of old bronze statues may be given, by touching it in various places with a solution of verdigris, while the more prominent parts of the figure, such as the swelling of muscles and the projecting draperies, may be delicately touched with a hare's foot, or any soft and convenient tool, covered with a small portion of bronze. The late Frederick Accum, a practical chemist, well known to the scientific world, was the inventor of a liquid bronze, applicable to all articles of brass manufacture. It had the effect of producing a rich, deep, and permanent bronze appearance, and is even at the present time extensively used; but the manufacture is kept in very few hands. The following process of manufacturing | by striking it upon the upper part, a deep it was given to us by a gentleman who sound like that of a church bell was prosome years since had the direction of duced. The battered appearance of the Accum's laboratory, and therefore is cer- stone above, bore several proofs of how tainly correct. One ounce of scrap pla- many visitors had made this lion roar. tina, collected from gunsmiths and other Many of the other rocks were also sonoartizans who use this metal, is dissolved rous, but not so loud as the first; and, in sixteen parts of nitro-muriatic acid, from their situations, (although moveable composed of twelve parts of muriatic and when trodden upon,) it could not be seen four of nitric acid. When this solution whether they were naturally excavated is properly effected, it will have a rich similar to the preceding. The Lappa is dark chestnut-brown colour. One ounce a place to which the residents of Macao of the solution of platina is then mixed resort, forming pic-nic parties, for the with six ounces of distilled water, and a purposes of enjoying a change of scene pale gold-coloured liquid is produced, in their limited place of residence, and which is used on brass, in the following deriving a gratification from the natural manner. The articles to be bronzed are and cultivated beauties of this pretty first heated in a lacquering stove; and valley. when brought to a proper temperature, the solution is applied with a camelhair pencil. The surface of the brass instantly assumes a rich dark bronze colour, which is durable as well as beautiful. When the articles have been bronzed, they are generally covered with a lacquer, or some other protecting varnish. Many elegant specimens of bronzing may be seen on the cast-iron fenders and ornamental stoves which have, of late, become so fashionable. This effect is produced by the aurum musivum, a powder already mentioned. In conclusion, we may state, that a few sulphur casts of coins were shown us some time since, which were so well bronzed, that it would have been impossible for any person to have detected the imposition, without taking them in their hands. They were manufactured at Paris, but the composition of the bronze we were unable to discover.-H. SOUNDS FROM ROCKS. MR. G. BENNET, in his account of his "Wanderings," states the following singular fact in reference to Macao : At one part, my attention was directed to a mass of granite rocks, appearing as if they had been huddled together by some convulsion of nature, and many of them were found to be moveable when trodden upon. Some of these were described as being sonorous; and as they were regarded as one of the Macao lions, they were of course well worth seeing, if it was only for the pleasure of relating to every one that you had seen them. The first, and by far the most sonorous, was partially excavated underneath, and OLD HUMPHREY ON THE CLOCK IN THE SOME time ago I received, from an excellent hand, the following communiunknown correspondent, written in an cation. "DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,-I send you a new text. In the museum at Kendal there is a curious specimen of a clock, said to be one of the first ever made on the pendulum principle. It will still keep correct time. On the dial is the following inscription. 'The gift of James Cock, Maior in Kendall, 1654. to the Maior of the same sucksesively. Time runeth;—your work is before you.' Dear Humphrey, your sincere wellwisher, one who trusts he has been benefited by your addresses.-Dec. 2, 1841." Now this motto, and I would fain fling an old man's thanks to the kind heart that has drawn my attention to it, is a very arresting one: it is a text from which, for a few moments, I would freely discourse. I said, and truly said, that my communication was written in an excellent hand; but it is not an unfrequent case, for good penmen to have their peculiarities; i's are left unspecked, t's uncrossed, or you may look in vain for a full stop, or even a One of my comma, in a whole page. correspondents carries the straight stroke of a gas far above the line as an 1 or h; another sprawls out the word understanding, or any other word of the same length, so as to occupy with it an entire line; while a third writes so small, that I question if he could not with his pen, or his cedar pencil, write a letter, or at least a note, on his thumb nail. Not being able exactly to decide whether one letter of my correspondent was a c or an o; and liking to be particular in such matters, I addressed a letter to the curator of the Kendal museum, who, by return of post, kindly gave me the information I desired. It is not often that we send two hundred and sixty miles for the correction of a single letter of the alphabet. But now to the pleasant task that has been committed to me in so friendly a manner. Time runneth; indeed it does, and so rapidly, that there is some danger of our not being able to keep up with it. "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away," Psa. xc. 10. It is a practice with me, when I wish to impress my mind deeply with a subject, to try to hit upon some strong figure or striking illustration that embodies it. Before now, I have absolutely quailed with fear, when sitting at my books an hour or two after midnight, at that strengthy figure used by a learned doctor, wherein he asserts, that sitting up late at night, is like lighting the taper of life at both ends, and running a red hot poker through the middle of it. This alarming comparison has many a time scared me from my untimely studies, and I have slunk away like a culprit to my repose. Now I want a strong figure, one that will be likely deeply to impress the mind of the reader and the writer, with regard to time; but I cannot find one to my purpose. I have likened time to a ship with spreading sails, about to depart for ever from the shore; and to "A winged charioteer Lashing his fiery steeds with furious haste; Shaping, like one on urgent business bent, To heaven's high chancel his unerring way." But whether it be that the mind, long accustomed to receive an idea in one shape, finds a difficulty to receive it in another, or from any other cause, neither of these figures equals the common one under which time is usually represented; that of a stern and stalwart old man, with huge wings, a scythe, and an hourglass. In my youthful days I have gazed on this imaginary figure with awe, and arrayed it with dread reality. At this moment a rude, but effective engraving me. on wood, representing time, lies before The old man has an iron frame, and an iron set of features stern and pitiless. With him there is no compassion. "Kneel, sue, and supplicate, conjure, repent, Weep tears of blood, and he will not relent." Those wings betoken that in his flight he would leave the screaming eagle far behind him, and his scythe, cumbersome as it would be to another, encumbers him not. There is hardly any figure more impressive than the figure of Time. And now comes on my remembrance a far more striking picture, drawn by an inspired hand, in the tenth chapter of Revelation. "The angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." But to my subject. "Time runneth ; your work is before you." Oh that I had thoughts equal to my emotions,__and words equal to my thoughts! "Time runneth;" why it seems but as yesterday that my father took me to a country boarding-school. I was then little more than five years old; and now! look at these grey hairs! This brow was then smooth and bright, and now it is graven by revolving years. The other day, as it were, I entered into life, and now the tomb is before me. "Time runneth with a witness, and how have I neglected, wasted, and misused it. Never did heart beat with warmer or with less selfish emotions, nor yearn with purer and higher and holier objects, than those which animated the youthful heart of Old Humphrey, and they were all to be embodied in his after life. Alas! hours, days, weeks, months, and years have passed by; and he sighs at the painful retrospect, how little has he done, and how much has he yet to do! Mortal man wastes his hours and his years in the pursuit of trifles, gewgaws of fame, and baubles of glittering dust, while the time is hastening on, yea is almost at hand, when moments will be worth millions! And how has it been with you? has time hurried on, outrunning your intentions, outstripping your projects, and leaving you far behind, in the midst of neglected resolutions, abandoned undertakings, and half-executed plans for God's glory, and the welfare of mankind? Is your heart merry or mourning? Rejoicing at the works of your hands, or weeping over the wreck of your goodly resolves? I need not ask: we have both done what we ought not to have done, and left undone what we ought to have done. We have both sinned and sorrowed, and alike stand in need of reproof and consolation. But shall we do well to sit down, and waste the few remaining sands in the hourglass of life in unavailing regret that the past have run so swiftly? No, no! If we have but little time, the more energy should we display. Time runneth still, and our work is yet before us. Let us up, then, and be doing, with all the faculties and energies of our bodies and our souls. to the hills whence cometh our help? relying without subterfuge or reservation on the merits and mercy of the Redeemer, and the all-sufficient sacrifice offered up on the cross for sinners? or are we diminishing the value of that sacrifice, polluting the pure fountain of living waters, and gainsaying the word of God, by putting in some claim to heaven on our own account, and mingling some miserable amount of our own supposed merits, with the costly ransom that has been paid by our Redeemer? It behoves us to see to this; for time runneth, and our work is before us. We cannot make ourselves pure, but we may go to the fountain that is opened for sin and uncleanness. We cannot save ourselves, but we can go as supplicating sinners to that Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. Is there aught to be done by us for the Redeemer's glory? let us do it, for time runneth. Is there aught left undone of duty, kindness, forgiveness, affection, and benevolence to our fellow-men? let us do it; for our work is before us. Stirring up our thankfulness towards God, and our good will towards mankind, let us be diligent in every good word and work, encouraging one another in our way to heaven. Perhaps, as time runneth so rapidly, we cannot do better than ask ourselves this plain question, Were this present day known by us to be the last we should spend on this side the eternal world, as it possibly may be, to what would our attention be directed? Oh, how the little objects that usually occupy us, seem scattered right and left by this inquiry! Should we give a thought to the news of the day? the driving of a bargain? the heaping together a hillock of glittering dust? the laying out money to advantage? the cut of our clothes? the bits and drops we intended to consume? or, in short, to the securing any worldly advantage, or the forwarding of any worldly object? The very suggestion appears a mockery. Nothing, no nothing, in comparison with our eternal welfare, and that of those dear to us, would be re-fitably commented on the impressive garded of sufficient importance to engage our thoughts. Think not that I am here undervaluing the affections that bind man to man, or that I am oblivious to the numberless duties and kind intentions which men, as fathers, husbands, brothers, children, relatives, friends, and neighbours, are bound to regard. These things should be attended to by us, and the other not neglected: but every other object is as dust in the balance, compared with the eternal welfare of the soul. We should then be honest to ourselves and to those dear to us, in making the eternal welfare of the soul the first object of our attention and desires. Are we right in this matter, standing on a rock? Is our faith firm, and our hope clear as daylight? Are we looking I should like to see the old clock in the Kendal museum; and if ever I find my. self in the neighbourhood of the lakes, it shall not be passed by without a visit from me. In the mean time, if the few meagre remarks here made should call forth salutary reflection in the minds of my readers, my pen will not have unpro motto forwarded me by my unknown, kind correspondent. Gladly would Í wrtie a word of warning on their hearts; and willingly would I have the inscription, "TIME RUNNETH; YOUR WORK IS BEFORE YOU," graven on my own. THE SAVIOUR. THE Saviour came to reconcile God to man by the sacrifice of the cross. (He did not suffer, be it, nevertheless, observed, to soften the heart of God; for "God is love;" nor to turn away his wrath and vengeance; for God so loved the world, that he gave his Son to save it. God's love was the procuring cause of the atonement; not the atonement the procuring cause of it.) He came to meet and sa |