The Chinese declare that in olden times men used the metal for arms, which in the days of the Thsin (B.C. 300) began to be made of iron. Sir John Davis (i. 230) confirms the fact that the Chinese Sword and backsword, both wretched weapons, were originally of copper, long ago changed to iron. Dr. Pfizmaier tells us that about B.C. 475 the King of U sent a steel blade to his minister, U-tse-tsui, wherewith to behead himself. According to Pliny, the Seres exported iron to Europe together with their tissues and their skins. The Chinese distinguish between Thse-thung (purple copper) and Thing-sung (green copper) or bronze. They prefer the ‘Tze-lae,’ or natural ore, gathered in the torrent-beds of Kwei-chow and Yun-nan, and the latter exclusively produces the famous Pe-tung,[201] or white copper, which takes a fine polish like silver. They made copper the base of their coinage as well as their weapons. Amongst their many charms and talismans are the ‘money-swords,’ a number of ancient copper coins pierced with a square central hole, and connected by a metal bar shaped like a cross-hilted Sword. These are suspended over the testerns of beds and sleeping-couches, that the guardianship of the kings in whose reigns the money was issued may keep away ghosts and spirits. The Japanese copper[202] is of the finest quality, and is used as a standard of comparison. The superiority of the metal, which contains a percentage of gold, enabled the self-taught native workmen to produce those castings which are the admiration and the despair of the European artist. The copper delivered at Nagasaki and Kwashi is from Beshki, Akita, and Nambu; other places produce the more ordinary kinds. The rich red surface is due to a thin and tenaciously adhering film of dioxide: this has been imitated in England. The famous Satzuma copper, held to be the best in the world, was prepared under Government officials, none being sold privately. The ore was roasted in kilns for ten to twenty days, smelted in large furnaces with charcoal, and cast in water to make the well-known Japanese ingots. These were bars measuring about half an inch on the side, by seven to nine inches in length, and weighing some ten taels, nearly equal to one pound. They were packed in boxes each weighing a picul (= 125 to 133⅓ lbs. avoir.), about the load of a man. The price of course greatly varied. The trade was at first wholly in the hands of the Hollanders, who made a good thing of their monopoly. There was also an old traffic in Japanese copper on the eastern coast of India, especially Coromandel. The opening of the empire has caused revolutionary changes. [Heading: _THE COPPER AGE._]