photographs

Some cool china metal stamping images:

Image from page 247 of “The Chinese : a general description of the Empire of China and its inhabitants” (1846)

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Identifier: chinesegeneralde02daviuoft
Title: The Chinese : a general description of the Empire of China and its inhabitants
Year: 1846 (1840s)
Authors: Davis, John Francis, Sir, 1795-1890
Subjects: China — Description and travel China — History
Publisher: London : M. A. Nattali
Contributing Library: Robarts – University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Ahead of Image:
very sonorous nature of their go?igs arisesfrom the large proportion of tin in combination withcopper. In the most considerable Budhist temples isalways suspended a excellent cylindrical bell, which, how-ever, is not rung like our bells, by swinging with aclapper, but struck on the outdoors with a big woodenmallet. The fantastic bell at Peking, measured by oneof the Jesuits, was fourteen feet and a half in height,and almost thirteen in diameter. This, as nicely asmost other people of the sort, is extremely ancient and withsuch antique specimens we may consist of the vases andtripods of bronze and other metals, on which theChinese location wonderful retailer, but which are generali 236 THE CHINESE. rather too clumsy to possess much elegance. Anotherof their antiques in metal is the circular mirror, thespeculum of which is formed apparently of a mixtureof copper and tin, with probably a portion of silver.Some of the round metal mirrors, sold in Mr. Saltscollection of Egyptian antiquities, are surprisingly likethese.

Text Appearing Right after Image:
Metal Tea-pot, covering earthenware. But there is a puzzling house in several of theChinese mirrors which deserves particular notice, andwe may possibly give it collectively with the remedy furnished bySir David Brewster : The mirror has a knob in thecentre of the back, by which it can be held, and onthe rest of the back are stamped in relief particular circleswith a type of Grecian bortler. Its polished surfacehas that degree of convexity which provides an image ofthe face half its all-natural size and its exceptional pro-perty is, that when you reject the rays of the sunfrom the polished surface^the image of the ornamentalborder, and circles stam])ed upon the back, is seendistinctly reflected on the wall, or on a sheet of paper. The metal of which the mirror is created seems to METALLIC MIRRORS. 237 be what is known as Chinese silver, a composition of tinand copper, like the metal for the specula of reflectingtelescopes. The metal is quite sonorous. The mirrorhas a rim (at the back) of about l-4th, or l-6th

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