[20] This operation apparently results in a coating to prevent the deflagration of the saltpetre—in fact, it might be permitted to translate inflammatur "deflagrate," instead of kindle.
[21] The results which would follow from the use of these "fluxes" would obviously depend upon the ore treated. They can all conceivably be successful. Of these, the first is the lead-glass of the German assayers—a flux much emphasized by all old authorities, [Pg 237]including Lohneys, Ercker and Cramner, and used even yet. The "powerful flux" would be a reducing, desulphurizing, and an acid flux. The "more powerful" would be a basic flux in which the reducing action of the argols would be largely neutralised by the nitre. The "still more powerful" would be a strongly sulphurizing basic flux, while the "most powerful" would be a still more sulphurizing flux, but it is badly mixed as to its oxidation and basic properties. (See also [note 19] on sal artificiosus).
[22] Lead ash (Cinis Plumbi. Glossary, Pleyasch).—This was obviously, from the method of making, an artificial lead sulphide.
[23] Ashes of lead (Nigri plumbi cinis). This, as well as lead ash, was also an artificial lead sulphide. Such substances were highly valued by the Ancients for medicinal purposes. Dioscorides (V, 56) says: "Burned lead (Molybdos cecaumenos) is made in this way: Sprinkle sulphur over some very thinnest lead plates and put them into a new earthen pot, add other layers, putting sulphur between each layer until the pot is full; set it alight and stir the melted lead with an iron rod until it is entirely reduced to ashes and until none of the lead remains unburned. Then take it off, first stopping up your nose, because the fumes of burnt lead are very injurious. Or burn the lead filings in a pot with sulphur as aforesaid." Pliny (XXXIV., 50) gives much the same directions.
[Pg 238][24] Camphor (camphora). This was no doubt the well-known gum. Agricola, however, believed that camphor (De Nat. Fossilium, p. 224) was a species of bitumen, and he devotes considerable trouble to the refutation of the statements by the Arabic authors that it was a gum. In any event, it would be a useful reducing agent.
[25] Inasmuch as orpiment and realgar are both arsenical sulphides, the use of iron "slag," if it contains enough iron, would certainly matte the sulphur and arsenic. Sulphur and arsenic are the "juices" referred to (see [note 4, p. 1]). It is difficult to see the object of preserving the antimony with such a sulphurizing "addition," unless it was desired to secure a regulus of antimony alone from a given antimonial ore.
[Pg 239][26] The lead free from silver, called villacense, was probably from Bleyberg, not far from Villach in Upper Austria, this locality having been for centuries celebrated for its pure lead. These mines were worked prior to, and long after, Agricola's time.
[Pg 242][27] This method of proportionate weights for assay charges is simpler than the modern English "assay ton," both because of the use of 100 units in the standard of weight (the centumpondium), and because of the lack of complication between the Avoirdupois and Troy scales. For instance, an ore containing a libra of silver to the centumpondium would contain 1/100th part, and the same ratio would obtain, no matter what the actual weight of a centumpondium of the "lesser weight" might be. To follow the matter still further, an uncia being 1/1,200 of a centumpondium, if the ore ran one "uncia of the lesser weight" to the "centumpondium of the lesser weight," it would also run one actual uncia to the actual centumpondium; it being a matter of indifference what might be the actual weight of the centumpondium upon which the scale of lesser weights is based. In fact Agricola's statement (p. [261]) indicates that it weighed an actual drachma. We have, in some places, interpolated the expressions "lesser" and "greater" weights for clarity.
This is not the first mention of this scheme of lesser weights, as it appears in the Probierbüchlein (1500? see [Appendix B]) and Biringuccio (1540). For a more complete discussion of weights and measures see [Appendix C]. For convenience, we repeat here the Roman scale, although, as will be seen in the Appendix, Agricola used the Latin terms in many places merely as nomenclature equivalents of the old German scale.
| Troy Grains. | Ozs. | dwts. | gr. | ||||||
| per short ton. | |||||||||
| 1 | Siliqua | 2.87 | Per | Centumpondium | 0 | 3 | 9 | ||
| 6 | Siliquae | = | 1 Scripulum | 17.2 | " | " | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| 4 | Scripula | = | 1 Sextula | 68.7 | " | " | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 | Sextulae | = | 1 Uncia | 412.2 | " | " | 24 | 6 | 2 |
| 12 | Unciae | = | 1 Libra | 4946.4 | " | " | 291 | 13 | 8 |
| 100 | Librae | = | 1 Centumpondium | 494640.0 | |||||
| However Agricola may occasionally use | |||||||||
| 16 | Unciae | = | 1 Libra | 6592.0 | (?) | ||||
| 100 | Librae | = | 1 Centumpondium | 659200.0 | (?) | ||||
| Also | |||||||||
| Ozs. | dwts. | gr. | |||||||
| per short ton. | |||||||||
| 1 | Scripulum | 17.2 | Per | Centumpondium | 1 | 0 | 6 | ||
| 3 | Scripula | = | 1 Drachma | 51.5 | " | " | 3 | 0 | 19 |
| 2 | Drachmae | = | 1 Sicilicus | 103.0 | " | " | 6 | 1 | 15 |
| 4 | Sicilici | = | 1 Uncia | 412.2 | " | " | 24 | 6 | 12 |
| 8 | Unciae | = | 1 Bes | 3297.6 | " | " | 194 | 12 | 0 |