South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c8.7

c8.7

⁴ "Take 12 parts of weight of pure tin, melt it at a slow fire, and avoid bringing it to a red-heat. Then pour in two parts of quicksilver, stir until the latter has become thoroughly absorbed and amalgamated, and cast the mixture into a bar. Take 80 parts of refined copper and melt it, and then gradually incorporate with it the amalgam, stirring vigorously in the meantime. Now throw into the crucible a sufficient quantity of ashes obtained from the stems of the 'bua-bok' (lotus) creeper, so as to cover the molten metal. Remove the dross with an iron ladle, and the metal remaining is Samrit bronze." This percentage thus works out to be 85.11 copper, 12.76 tin, and 2.13 quicksilver. Science Siftings quoted in The Statesman, 19th November 1911.