[Pg 423] (Brass is modern poetic licence for copper or bronze). Also, in the Odyssey (IX, 465) when Homer describes how Ulysses plunged the stake into Cyclop's eye, we have the first positive evidence of steel, although hard iron mentioned in the Tribute of Yü, above referred to, is sometimes given as steel:
"And as when armourers temper in the ford
The keen-edg'd pole-axe, or the shining sword,
The red-hot metal hisses in the lake."
No doubt early wrought-iron was made in the same manner as Agricola describes. We are, however, not so clear as to the methods of making steel. Under primitive methods of making wrought-iron it is quite possible to carburize the iron sufficiently to make steel direct from ore. The primitive method of India and Japan was to enclose lumps of wrought-iron in sealed crucibles with charcoal and sawdust, and heat them over a long period. Neither Pliny nor any of the other authors of the period previous to the Christian Era give us much help on steel metallurgy, although certain obscure expressions of Aristotle have been called upon (for instance, St. John V. Day, Prehistoric Use of Iron and Steel, London, 1877, p. 134) to prove its manufacture by immersing wrought-iron in molten cast-iron.
[56] Quae vel aerosa est, vel cocta. It is by no means certain that cocta, "cooked" is rightly translated, for the author has not hitherto used this expression for heated. This may be residues from roasting and leaching pyrites for vitriol, etc.
[Pg 428][57] Agricola draws no sharp line of distinction between antimony the metal, and its sulphide. He uses the Roman term stibi or stibium (Interpretatio,—Spiesglas) throughout this book, and evidently in most cases means the sulphide, but in others, particularly in parting gold and silver, metallic antimony would be reduced out. We have been in much doubt as to the term to introduce into the text, as the English "stibnite" carries too much precision of meaning. Originally the "antimony" of trade was the sulphide. Later, with the application of that term to the metal, the sulphide was termed "grey antimony," and we have either used stibium for lack of better alternative, or adopted "grey antimony." The method described by Agricola for treating antimony sulphide is still used in the Harz, in Bohemia, and elsewhere. The stibnite is liquated out at a low heat and drips from the upper to the lower pot. The resulting purified antimony sulphide is the modern commercial "crude antimony" or "grey antimony."
Historical Note on the Metallurgy of Antimony. The Egyptologists have adopted the term "antimony" for certain cosmetics found in Egyptian tombs from a very early period. We have, however, failed to find any reliable analyses which warrant this assumption, and we believe that it is based on the knowledge that antimony was used as a base for eye ointments in Greek and Roman times, and not upon proper chemical investigation. It may be that the ideograph which is interpreted as antimony may really mean that substance, but we only protest that the chemist should have been called in long since. In St. Jerome's translation of the Bible, the cosmetic used by Jezebel (II. Kings IX, 30) and by the lady mentioned by Ezekiel (XXIII, 40), "who didst wash thyself and paintedst thine eyes" is specifically given as stibio. Our modern translation carries no hint of the composition of the cosmetic, and whether some of the Greek or Hebrew MSS. do furnish a basis for such translation we cannot say. The Hebrew term for this mineral was kohl, which subsequently passed into "alcool" and "alkohol" in other languages, and appears in the Spanish Bible in the above passage in Ezekiel as alcoholaste. The term antimonium seems to have been first used in Latin editions of Geber published in the latter part of the 15th Century. In any event, the metal is clearly mentioned by Dioscorides (1st Century), who calls it stimmi, and Pliny, who termed it stibium, and they leave no doubt that it was used as a cosmetic for painting the eyebrows and dilating the eyes. Dioscorides (V, 59) says: "The best stimmi is very brilliant and radiant. When broken it divides into layers with no part earthy or dirty; it is brittle. Some call it stimmi, others platyophthalmon (wide eyed); others larbason, others gynaekeion (feminine).... It is roasted in a ball of dough with charcoal until it becomes a cinder.... It is also roasted by putting it on live charcoal and blowing it. If it is roasted too much it becomes lead." Pliny states (XXXIII, 33 and 34): "In the same mines in which silver is found, properly speaking there is a stone froth. It is white and shining, not transparent; is called stimmi, or stibi, or alabastrum, and larbasis. There are two kinds of it, the male and the female. The most approved is the female, the male being more uneven, rougher, less heavy, not so radiant, and more gritty. The female kind is bright and friable, laminar and not globular. It is astringent and refrigerative, and its principal use is for the eyes.... It is burned in manure in a furnace, is quenched with milk, ground with rain water in a mortar, and while thus turbid it is poured into a copper vessel and purified with nitrum ... above all in roasting it care [Pg 429]should be taken that it does not turn to lead." There can be little doubt from Dioscorides' statement of its turning to lead that he had seen the metal antimony, although he thought it a species of lead. Of further interest in connection with the ancient knowledge of the metal is the Chaldean vase made of antimony described by Berthelot (Comptes Rendus, 1887, CIV, 265). It is possible that Agricola knew the metal, although he gives no details as to de-sulphurizing it or for recovering the metal itself. In De Natura Fossilium (p. 181) he makes a statement which would indicate the metal, "Stibium when melted in the crucible and refined has as much right to be regarded as a metal as is accorded to lead by most writers. If when smelted a certain portion be added to tin, a printer's alloy is made from which type is cast that is used by those who print books." Basil Valentine, in his "Triumphal Chariot of Antimony," gives a great deal that is new with regard to this metal, even if we can accredit the work with no earlier origin than its publication—about 1600; it seems [Pg 430]possible however, that it was written late in the 15th Century (see [Appendix B]). He describes the preparation of the metal from the crude ore, both by roasting and reduction from the oxide with argol and saltpetre, and also by fusing with metallic iron. While the first description of these methods is usually attributed to Valentine, it may be pointed out that in the Probierbüchlein (1500) as well as in Agricola the separation of silver from iron by antimony sulphide implies the same reaction, and the separation of silver and gold with antimony sulphide, often attributed to Valentine, is repeatedly set out in the Probierbüchlein and in De Re Metallica. Biringuccio (1540) has nothing of importance to say as to the treatment of antimonial ores, but mentions it as an alloy for bell-metal, which would imply the metal.
[Pg 432][58] Historical Note on the Metallurgy of Quicksilver. The earliest mention of quicksilver appears to have been by Aristotle (Meteorologica IV, 8, 11), who speaks of it as fluid silver (argyros chytos). Theophrastus (105) states: "Such is the production of quicksilver, which has its uses. This is obtained from cinnabar rubbed with vinegar in a brass mortar with a brass pestle." (Hill's Trans., p. 139). Theophrastus also (103) mentions cinnabar from Spain and elsewhere. Dioscorides (V, 70) appears to be the first to describe the recovery of quicksilver by distillation: "Quicksilver (hydrargyros, i.e., liquid silver) is made from ammion, which is called cinnabari. An iron bowl containing cinnabari is put into an earthen vessel and covered over with a cup-shaped lid smeared with clay. Then it is set on a fire of coals and the soot which sticks to the cover when wiped off and cooled is quicksilver. Quicksilver is also found in drops falling from the walls of the silver mines. Some say there are quicksilver mines. It can be kept only in vessels of glass, lead, tin (?), or silver, for if put in vessels of any other substances it consumes them and flows [Pg 433]through." Pliny (XXXIII, 41): "There has been discovered a way of extracting hydrargyros from the inferior minium as a substitute for quicksilver, as mentioned. There are two methods: either by pounding minium and vinegar in a brass mortar with a brass pestle, or else by putting minium into a flat earthen dish covered with a lid, well luted with potter's clay. This is set in an iron pan and a fire is then lighted under the pan, and continually blown by a bellows. The perspiration collects on the lid and is wiped off and is like silver in colour and as liquid as water." Pliny is somewhat confused over the minium—or the text is corrupt, for this should be the genuine minium of Roman times. The methods of condensation on the leaves of branches placed in a chamber, of condensing in ashes placed over the mouth of the lower pot, and of distilling in a retort, are referred to by Biringuccio (A.D. 1540), but with no detail.
[59] Most of these methods depend upon simple liquation of native bismuth. The sulphides, oxides, etc., could not be obtained without fusing in a furnace with appropriate de-sulphurizing or reducing agents, to which Agricola dimly refers. In Bermannus (p. 439), he says: "Bermannus.—I will show you another kind of mineral which is numbered amongst metals, but appears to me to have been unknown to the Ancients; we call it bisemutum. Naevius.—Then in your opinion there are more kinds of metals than the seven commonly believed? Bermannus.—More, I consider; for this which just now I said we called bisemutum, cannot correctly be called plumbum candidum (tin) nor nigrum (lead), but is different from both, and is a third one. Plumbum candidum is whiter and plumbum nigrum is darker, as you see. Naevius.—We see that this is of the colour of galena. Ancon.—How then can bisemutum, as you call it, be distinguished from galena? Bermannus.—Easily; when you take it in your hands it stains them with black unless it is quite hard. The hard kind is not friable like galena, but can be cut. It is blacker than the kind of crude silver which we say is almost the colour of lead, and thus is different from both. Indeed, it not rarely contains some silver. It generally shows that there is silver beneath the place where it is found, and because of this our miners are accustomed to call it the 'roof of silver.' They are wont to roast this mineral, and from the better part they make metal; from the poorer part they make a pigment of a kind not to be despised." This pigment was cobalt blue (see note on p. [112]), indicating a considerable confusion of these minerals. This quotation is the first description of bismuth, and the above text the first description of bismuth treatment. There is, however, bare mention of the mineral earlier, in the following single line from the Probierbüchlein (p. 1): "Jupiter (controls) the ores of tin and wismundt." And it is noted in the Nützliche Bergbüchlein in association with silver (see [Appendix B]).
[Pg 435][60] This cadmia is given in the German translation as kobelt. It is probably the cobalt-arsenic-bismuth minerals common in Saxony. A large portion of the world's supply of bismuth to-day comes from the cobalt treatment works near Schneeberg. For further discussion of cadmia see note on p. [112].