watch the same transition in the corresponding words of the Teutonic languages.... It is all the more curious, therefore, that the Sanskrit _ayas_, which is the same word as _aes_ and _aiz_, should in Sanskrit have assumed the almost exclusive meaning of iron. I suspect, however, that in Sanskrit, too, _ayas_ meant originally the metal, _i.e._ copper, and that as iron took the place of copper, the meaning of _ayas_ was changed and specified.... In German, too, the name for iron was derived from the older name of copper. The Gothic _eisarn_, iron, is considered by Grimm as a derivative form of _aiz_, and the same scholar concludes from this that ‘in Germany bronze must have been in use before iron.’” But to return to Greece. It is, of course, somewhat doubtful how far the word χαλκὸς, as used by the earliest Greek authors, was intended to apply to unalloyed copper, or to that mixture of copper and tin which we now know as bronze. Mr. Gladstone,[34] who on all questions relating to Homer ought to be one of the best living authorities, regards the word as meaning copper: firstly, because it is always spoken of by Homer as a pure metal along with other pure metals; secondly, on account of the epithets ἐρυθρὸς, ἤνοψ, and νώροψ, which mean red, bright, and gleaming, being applied to it, and which Mr. Gladstone considers to be inapplicable to bronze; and thirdly, because Homer does not appear to have known anything at all of the fusion or alloying of metals. The second reason he considers further strengthened by the probability that Homer would not represent the walls of the palace of Alcinous as plated with bronze, nor introduce a heaven of bronze among the imposing imagery of battle (Il., xvii. 424). On the whole he concludes that χαλκὸς was copper hardened by some method, as some think by the agency of water, or else and more probably according to a very simple process, by cooling slowly in the air.[35] I regret to say that these conclusions appear to me to be founded to some extent on false premises and on more than one misconception. The process of heating copper and then dipping it in water or allowing it slowly to cool, so far from being adapted for hardening that metal, is that which is usually adopted for annealing or softening it. While the plunging into cold water of steel at a red heat has the effect of rendering that metal intensely hard, on copper the reverse is the result; and, as Dr. Percy has observed,[36] it is immaterial whether the cooling after annealing—or restoring its malleability by means of heat—takes place slowly or rapidly. Indeed, one alloy of copper and tin is rendered most malleable by rapid cooling. It has been stated[37] that bronze of the ancient composition may by cooling it slowly be rendered as hard as steel, and at the same time less brittle, but this statement seems to require confirmation.