The next period—the Renaissance—is one in which our descriptions are for the first time satisfactory, and a discussion would be but a review of De Re Metallica.
[2] See [footnote 2, p. 267], on verbs used for roasting.
[Pg 356][3] Agricola has here either forgotten to take into account his three-palm-thick furnace walls, which will make the length of this long wall sixty-one feet, or else he has included this foot and a half in each case in the six-foot distance between the furnaces, so that the actual clear space is only four and a half feet between the furnace with four feet on the ends.
[Pg 358][4] The paucity of terms in Latin for describing structural members, and the consequent repetition of "beam" (trabs), "timber" (tignum), "billet" (tigillum), "pole" (asser), with such modifications as small, large, and transverse, and with long explanatory clauses showing their location, renders the original very difficult to follow. We have, therefore, introduced such terms as "posts," "tie-beams," "sweeps," "levers," "rafters," "sills," "moulding," "braces," "cleats," "supports," etc., as the context demands.
[Pg 361][5] This set of rafters appears to start from the longitudinal beam.
[Pg 362][6] Devices for creating an air current must be of very old invention, for it is impossible to conceive of anything but the crudest melting of a few simple ores without some forced draft. Wilkinson (The Ancient Egyptians, II, p. 316) gives a copy of an illustration of a foot-bellows from a tomb of the time of Thotmes III. (1500 B.C.). The rest of the world therefore, probably obtained them from the Egyptians. They are mentioned frequently in the Bible, the most pointed reference to metallurgical purposes being Jeremiah (VI, 29): "The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed in the fire; the founder melteth in vain; for the wicked are not plucked away." Strabo (VII, 3) states that Ephorus ascribed the invention of bellows to Anacharsis—a Thracian prince of about 600 B.C.
[Pg 366][7] This whole arrangement could be summarized by the word "hinge."
[Pg 371][8] The rim of this wheel is obviously made of segments fixed in two layers; the "disc" meaning the aggregate of segments on either side of the wheel.
[Pg 376][9] It has not been considered necessary to introduce the modern term twyer in these descriptions, as the literal rendering is sufficiently clear.
[10] Ferruminata. These accretions are practically always near the hearth, and would correspond to English "sows," and therefore that term has been adopted. It will be noted that, like most modern metallurgists, Agricola offers no method for treating them. Pliny (XXXIV, 37) describes a "sow," and uses the verb ferruminare (to weld or solder): "Some say that in the furnace there are certain masses of stone which become soldered together, and that the copper fuses around it, the mass not becoming liquid unless it is transferred to another furnace; it thus forms a sort of knot, as it were, of the metal."