[7] Nitrum. The Ancients comprised many salts under this head, but Agricola in the main uses it for soda, although sometimes he includes potash. He usually, however, refers to potash as lixivium or salt therefrom, and by other distinctive terms. For description of method of manufacture and discussion, see Book XII., p. [558].
[8] Atramentum sutorium—"Shoemaker's blacking." See p. [572] for description of method of manufacture and historical footnote. In the main Agricola means green vitriol, but he does describe three main varieties, green, blue, and white (De Natura Fossilium, p. 219). The blue was of course copper sulphate, and it is fairly certain that the white was zinc vitriol.
[Pg 4][9] Lavandi—"Washing." By this term the author includes all the operations of sluicing, buddling, and wet concentration generally. There is no English equivalent of such wide application, and there is some difficulty in interpretation without going further than the author intends. [Book VIII.] is devoted to the subject.
[Pg 5][10] Operam et oleum perdit—"loss of labour and oil."
[11] In Veteribus et Novis Metallis, and Bermannus, Agricola states that the mines of Schemnitz were worked 800 years before that time (1530), or about 750 A.D., and, further, [Pg 6]that the lead mines of Goslar in the Hartz were worked by Otho the Great (936-973), and that the silver mines at Freiberg were discovered during the rule of Prince Otho (about 1170). To continue the argument to-day we could add about 360 years more of life to the mines of Goslar and Freiberg. See also [Note 16, p. 36], and [note 19, p. 37].
[12] Xenophon. Essay on the Revenues of Athens, I., 5.
[Pg 7][13] Ovid, Metamorphoses, I., 137 to 143.
[14] Diogenes Laertius, II., 5. The lines are assigned, however, to Philemon, not Euripides. (Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta II., 512).
[15] We have not considered it of sufficient interest to cite the references to all of the minor poets and those whose preserved works are but fragmentary. The translations from the Greek into Latin are not literal and suffer again by rendering into English; we have however considered it our duty to translate Agricola's view of the meaning.