copper

Copper is distinguished by its colour – that glint of pink, bordering on beige, bordering on orange. It has some other interesting characteristics, too.

It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. That is why it is used in electrical wires, and for cooking pots.

It doesn’t spark. In industries where flammable materials are nearby, non-sparking bronze tools are used instead of iron or steel ones.

It does not corrode easily. This makes it a safe metal to use to carry our domestic piped water.

It is antimicrobial. The legionella bacterium (which causes Legionnaire’s disease) cannot thrive in copper water pipes. Copper worksurfaces are more hygienic than steel ones.

It is non-magnetic. For this reason, bronze tools are used for working with delicate electronic instruments, such as in the computer industry.

It is recyclable. Since the earliest times, copper items have been melted down and re-made into new ones. About 40% of the copper in use today is recycled. So your trowel may once have been part of a Roman Centurion’s breastplate.

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In its pure form, copper can be beaten or moulded into complex shapes without cracking, or spun into wire as fine as human hair. Combined with small quantities of other metals, it retains some or all of these qualities, but forms alloys of greater hardness.

Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, has a yellow colour. It is even more ductile than pure copper, and is also harder and stronger. It is used for the collar of the Pegasus Pick and the frame of the Hydra Swing Hoe.

Bronze, copper alloyed with a small quantity of tin, is harder still – up to four times the hardness of pure copper. It is used for the blades of all of our tools. It was the first alloy to be created by humans.

In fact, bronze is such an important alloy that a prehistoric era was named after it.

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Copper and Iron

There is a strange duality between these two metals. For example, for iron to be hardened, it has to be heated. We have all seen either the images or reality of the blacksmith working in the heat of the forge. Copper, on the other hand, is weakened by heat. To be hardened, the metal must be cool. So bronze is hardened by hammering it when the metal is cold. Another duality can be seen when they burn. When oxides of iron burn, we see red and orange, one end of the spectrum. When copper burns, we see greens and blues – towards the other end of the visible spectrum.

Another important duality is electricity and magnetism. Iron is magnetic, copper is conductive. We may remember from our schooldays, seeing iron filings scattered on to a piece of paper above a magnet. The iron filings form into the lines of force caused by the magnet. Copper, conversely, is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. That is why we have copper-bottomed saucepans, and electricity is conducted along copper wires.

Electricity and magnetism are inseparable. An electric motor throws off a magnetic field. A dynamo on a bicycle, containing a magnet, generates enough electricity to light the lamp (if we pedal hard enough. The third necessary ingredient here is movement.)

Another significant difference between copper and iron is that iron is a base metal, whereas copper is a noble metal. Base metals extract oxygen from the air or water to form oxides. The rust which forms on iron exposed to the air is a compound of iron and oxygen. Copper does not rust, so it does not lock up oxygen in the way that iron does. Archeologists have found copper and bronze items that have lain under the sea for over 2000 years, since the Bronze Age. Iron implements do not last so long.

The element iron is relatively plentiful in the Earth’s core. As that iron moves, the Earth’s electromagnetic field is generated. That field permeates all of life on Earth, and charges the groundwater as it rises to the surface.

However, a piece of metallic iron, such as an iron tool, has a different magnetic orientation from the Earth's magnetic field, and may disturb it. Not only that, iron has the ability to cause sparks, which copper does not. Each spark represents a discharge, a drain of energy.

Cultivation with copper or iron tools

In 1982 Mr A.P. Tabraham of St Mary’s published a small book he had written, Solar Energy and Dowsing in the Isles of Scilly. It tells of his researches into the cultivation of an early-flowering variety of narcissus. However, the implications of this fascinating little book reach far beyond narcissus cultivation in the Scilly Isles.

The Soleil d’Or narcissus used to flower in late November to early December, ahead of the rest of the market. The farmers achieved this early flowering by spreading straw on the ground and burning it in the summer before planting the bulbs. If left to its own devices without the burning, the narcissus would flower at the end of January. Nobody knew why burning had such an effect, but it clearly did.

Over time, the practice of burning was too much work, and so it was abandoned. The Soleil d’Or no longer reached London two months early. Mr Tabraham started to research less labour-intensive ways of reintroducing it, so that the Scilly Isles flower farmers could recapture the early market. He is also a dowser, and his first breakthrough came when he found that he could detect the burnt area with his dowsing rods, even after a year. This started him off into a whole new area of inquiry.

One phenomenon that he recorded is of particular interest. After the burning and bulb planting, the tidy farmers ridged up their bulbs with tractor-drawn equipment. Their narcissi did not flower early, but those of the untidy farmers, who did no such work, did. It was as if the iron equipment negated the effect of the burning. Mr Tabraham investigated this further. He set iron nails and spikes into the ground, and detected that the dowsing effect disappeared in a six-foot radius of the piece of iron. The soil in that area was drained of energy. The longer the piece of iron stayed in the ground, the longer the effect lasted.

This becomes significant when one considers recent thinking in Soil Science. It is now considered that energy transfer in the soil is an important process for plant growth. A modern textbook of soil science has this to say about the importance of energy transfer in the soil:

“Cation exchange joins photosynthesis as a fundamental life-supporting process. Without this property of soils terrestrial ecosystems would not be able to retain sufficient nutrients to support natural or introduced vegetation, especially in the event of such disturbances as timber harvest, fire, or cultivation.”

(A cation is a positively charged electrical particle.) This gives even more significance to Mr Tabraham's researches, and starts to give an explanation for the remarkable results from Viktor Schauberger's researches with copper implements in the 1940's. In these trials, alternate strips in the same fields were cultivated with copper-plated and conventional steel ploughs. The strips cultivated with the copper-plated ploughs gave higher yields than those cultivated with conventional steel ploughs. In the light of the above, it seems possible that the iron implements drained the valuable energies which otherwise could have nourished the plants under cultivation.

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The Bronze Age

Copper, silver and gold were the first metals to be used in the ancient world. There are records of copper tools being used in Egypt as far back as 4000 BCE.

From about 2500 BCE, bronze was widely used in Europe and the Middle East, from Scandinavia to Spain, from Ireland to Greece. It was used to make weapons, ornaments and tools. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles fights with a bronze sword.

Because there are few written records from Bronze Age Europe, it is not easy to have a clear view of the world at that time. The archaeological record shows that there were many small communities, that these were largely self-sufficient and that people were not long-lived. This would suggest a primitive, hand-to-mouth existence.

But there are various clues that this is not the whole picture. First, bronze-making is a complicated process. Copper was mined and separated from its impurities by smelting. As the melting point of copper is 1083 degrees Celsius, purpose-built furnaces were required. Tin, a rarer metal, was extracted and similarly smelted. Then the two metals were melted again, and combined in the correct proportions. It has been found that tools with a sharp cutting edge, such as sickles, had less tin (3-4%) than harder-wearing tools, such as axes (6-7%). So the sickles could be sharpened regularly, and the axes would stand up to hard work. This shows a good understanding of the properties of the alloy.

Secondly, in 1992 a large bronze-age boat was discovered near Dover. It was 30 feet long, and clearly intended for cross-channel transport. In Langdon Bay near Dover, another boat was discovered in 1974. This boat contained bronze axes originating from France, apparently being sent to Britain for recycling. This also implies a high level of cooperation between supposedly simple communities.

It was a different world. One archaeological clue which interests the writer, is that female burials were frequently more lavish than male ones.

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Copper and Health

Human health

Many people know about the role of iron in human nutrition. If there is not enough of it in our diet, we tire easily and become pale and anaemic. But what about copper?

Whereas iron, broadly speaking, governs stamina, copper is to do with energy generation within the human body. It is present in 20 enzymes, mainly involved with the way the body gives us energy to function. It is also involved in the functioning of the nervous system, and helps the body to transport and absorb iron. It is very important in pregnancy. It plays a part in the growth of the baby in the womb and immediately after birth.

It is naturally present in seafood (especially shellfish), red meat (especially liver), potatoes, beans and peas, nuts, grains and leafy vegetables. A balanced diet containing these foods will give the body enough copper for its daily needs.

Plant health

Copper performs a similar function in plant growth, being a constituent of several enzymes. Its role is mainly to do with energy transfer, from the roots to the leaves, flowers and fruit. Copper helps plants to resist disease such as powdery mildew. It is a component of several organic compounds, including Bordeaux Mixture. With insufficient copper, growth is retarded and cereal crops do not form so many grains.

High concentrations of nitrogen in the soil, for example where fertilizer is applied, give rise to a lot of leafy growth. Leaves that would otherwise die, fall to the ground and decompose, stay on the plant for longer. In the process, copper that has been absorbed by the plant is locked up in these leaves. This has been found to lead to symptoms of copper deficiency in plants.

Castor Trowels

Phoenix Hoes

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References and further reading

Solar Energy and Dowsing in the Isles of Scilly for gardeners and farmers by A.P. Tabraham, published 1982 by A.P. and E.V. Tabraham, St Marys, Isles of Scilly.

Metals in the Service of Man by Arthur Street and William Alexander, 11^th edition, Penguin Books 1998.

European Societies in the Bronze Age by A.F. Harding, Cambridge University Press 2000.

The Nature and Properties of Soils by Nyle C. Brady and Raymond R. Weil, eleventh edition, Prentice Hall 1996, p270.

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Links

www.cda.org.uk

The Copper Development Association, 5 Grovelands Business Centre, Boundary Way, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 7TE, telephone 01442 275700. The CDA is a non-profit-making organisation. The website gives a comprehensive summary of the properties and uses of copper and its alloys.

www.schoolscience.co.uk

This schools science resource site has accessible information about copper, prepared by the CDA. Search the site for 'copper'.

www.copperinfo.com

The website of the International Copper Association, run by the world's leading copper producers.

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Copper Curiosities

Copper is being used in trials to reduce MRSA infection at a UK hospital.

In the periodic table of the elements, copper appears in the same column as silver and gold. These three are known as the noble metals.

The symbol for copper is the same as the symbol for the planet Venus, and also the symbol for the female gender. Similarly, the glyph for Mars, the metal iron and the male gender are the same .

The prehistoric Copper Age began in the Astrological Age of Taurus (Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus). And the Iron Age began in the Age of Aries, ruled by Mars.

Botticelli's famous painting , 'The Birth of Venus', shows Venus rising from the waves on a mollusc shell, off the coast of Cyprus. Molluscs' blood contains haemocyanin, which is based on copper.

Many people find that wearing a copper bracelet helps to ease rheumatic pain.

The word 'copper' derives from the latin word 'cuprum', which itself derives from 'cyprium' or Cyprus. This is because Cyprus was the main source of copper in the ancient Mediterranean.