Show Tempering Copper a Lost Art i HE fIE floe loo temper of OC the tho old Damascus sword blades Is a n lost art and U it Is claimed that never again will swords be mado made to cut no Ho keenly as nB those made by the ancient enterers In that city But Dut none tho less Jells mod modern I ern om civilization civilisation gets ceta along fairly well Swords era arn of It little moment nowadays except ex ept to adorn the persons pj of ot military nod and for commercial purposes the present processes of ot tempering steel ap appear appear pear to be he amply sufficient But Dut one ancient secret which woo po pOI scared Bossed by the Egyptians under tho the ancient and by the natives of or Peru under tinder the Aztec monarchy monarchs whose whoso line ended with the tho unfortunate Montezuma was the hardening of ot copper anti tern tem tempering perin title this metal metRI until they tIO were snore able to lo locut cut the thc hardest of ot stones such ns liS the porphyry anti and hard granite It U Is IR claimed tl they oven even cawed carved tile tho emerald with tow tem Instrument of ot copper This Thin tempering of ot copper now nary that the metal 1 is III being turned out profusely would menu a 1 tremendous gain 1111 lu III modern civilization 11 I on Humboldt that t curious curio und and or y ylI lI brainy scientist once attempted to anti ana i i I lyre lj e the chemical constituents of or n a chisel made of ot copper found In Porn Peru among I Iother other relics of ot the lost race raco of or the Incas Incus Ii jl lIe He learned that a n small mall percentage ot or ottin I tin Un won was mixed with the copper to tem tern temper temper u per the chisel e Yet despite the off efforts or IB of or Humboldt and many a n lAter Inter scientist to find Ond how to produce copper chisels that ji I r will cut granite and porphyry the secret of or the tho vanished Aztecs zt has ban never been becu recovered There may have been some other rare rul metal used In 10 combining the copper and the tin which HumbOldt I missed milled In his bis comparatively crude crud ana eua analysis lysis of ot the chisel found In the old sir str II vcr cr mine of ot ancient Peru |