It is not unlikely that in many places copper was largely used during the Stone Ages and before the Bronze epoch, since it was only after the art of making fire had been discovered that it became possible to manufacture bronze, whilst native copper could be fashioned without the aid of heat. Metallic relics of the Bronze Age, in the form of arms, ornaments, and domestic implements have been found in widely distributed localities. The mention of copper occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, the metal being termed _Nehosheth_, from the root _Nahásh_, to glisten. This was translated as χαλκὸς (_chalcos_) in the Septuagint, and _Aes_ in the Vulgate; the Greeks and Romans using the terms, however, both for copper and for the alloys brass and bronze. According to Pliny, the Roman supply was derived chiefly from Cyprus, and the metal thus came to be known as _Aes Cyprium_, which was gradually shortened to _Cyprium_, a name afterwards corrupted to _Cuprum_, from which are derived our modern terms _Copper_, the German _Kupfer_, and the French _Cuivre_. Copper was well known to the alchemists, and inasmuch as it was largely obtained from Cyprus, an island dedicated to Venus, it was considered to be the metal specially sacred to the Goddess, and was generally known by that name in their writings, and symbolised by the sign [symbol: circle with plus sign underneath]. The production of metallic copper on iron by the action of certain liquors from the Hungarian mines and other localities, was likewise known to the alchemists, and was a constant source of inspiration to them; the changes were regarded for some hundreds of years as examples of the transmutation of the elements, until Boyle showed that it was necessary to introduce copper into such solutions before that metal could be precipitated from them. =The Development of the Copper Industry.=—The mining and smelting of copper ores on a primitive scale have been carried on from time immemorial; these operations were certainly practised in Greek and Roman days, and the deposits of Britain are said to have been known to the Phœnicians so far back as 1000 B.C. Percy refers to the finding of lumps of copper weighing 42 lbs., carrying a Roman inscription; this metal was found in close proximity to mines in North Wales, which yielded an easily reducible ore, and he concluded that this was smelted _in situ_ by the Romans. There are undoubted records of copper mining in this country in the time of Edward III., and in that of Elizabeth; whilst the first authentic accounts of copper smelting date also from the latter period, relating to South Wales. It appears that one of the earliest establishments was situated at Neath—a fact recorded in a publication of 1602. The works probably existed for a century before that date, and the copper smelters at Swansea were established about 120 years afterwards.