FOOTNOTES
[82] [It has been observed by an anonymous reviewer (British and Foreign Medical Review, vol. viii. p. 361) that a passage in Strabo authorises the belief that the ancients were acquainted with this metal in its separate state, and that it is the false silver, ψευδάργυρον, of that ancient geographer.]
[83] Bulletin des fouilles d’une ville Romaine, p. 11.
[84] Plin. lib. xxxiv. sect. 22.
[85] Zinc-ore, besides being mentioned by Aristotle and Strabo, is mentioned by Galen, De Simplic. Medicam. Facultatibus, lib. ix. p. 142. As he found no furnace-calamine when he resided in Cyprus, he procured from the overseer of the mines some raw cadmia, which had been found in the mountains and rivulets, and which certainly must have been calamine.
[86] At first it was called æs cyprium, but in the course of time only cyprium; from which was at length formed cuprum. It cannot however be ascertained at what periods these appellations were common. The epithet cupreus occurs in manuscripts of Pliny and Palladius; but one cannot say whether later transcribers may not have changed cyprius into cupreus, with which they were perhaps better acquainted. The oldest writer who uses the word cuprum is Spartian; who says, in the Life of Caracalla, “cancelli ex ære vel cupro.” But may not the last word have been added to the text as a gloss? Pliny, book xxxvi. 26, says, “Addito cyprio et nitro;” which Isidore, xvi. 15, p. 393, expresses by the words adjecto cupro et nitro. The superiority of the Cyprian copper gave occasion to this appellation; as the best iron or steel was called chalybs, from the Chalybes (a people of Galatia) who prepared the finest, and carried on the greatest trade with it. But in what did the superiority of this Cyprian copper consist? In its purity, or in its colour, which approached near to that of gold? That island produced a great deal of ore which contained zinc, and abounded also with calamine. Pliny says, “in Cypro prima fuit æris inventio.” Red copper however had been known there from the earliest periods, so that the honour of its invention must be allowed to that island without any contradiction; and Pliny must undoubtedly allude in the above passage to some particular kind.
[87] Dioscorides, book v. c. 84, first mentions some sorts of cadmia, βοτρυίτις, πλακωτὴ and ὀστρακῖτις. These, according to Galen and Pliny, are undoubtedly certain kinds of (ofenbruch) furnace-calamine; but Salmasius in his book De Homonymis, p. 230, and Sarracen in his Annotations, p. 113, are of opinion that Dioscorides considered them as native kinds of cadmia, or minerals abundant in zinc. I cannot however allow myself to believe that Dioscorides, who was so careful, and who immediately after describes the artificial preparation of cadmia clearly and properly, should have thus erred. Besides, every kind of ofenbruch (furnace-calamine) must have discovered its origin from fire to such a good judge of minerals as Dioscorides. I am convinced that he, as well as Galen and Pliny, considered the above kinds as furnace-calamine.
Pompholyx was the name of the white flowers of zinc which Dioscorides, v. 85, p. 352, compares to wool, and which by chemists were formerly called lana philosophica. The ancients collected these flowers when produced by the melting of zinc-ore; but they obtained them also by an apparatus which is fully described by Dioscorides and Galen, and which approaches near to that used for collecting arsenic in the poison melting-houses, as they are usually called.
[88] This however I will not with certainty affirm. As calmey and galmey have probably taken their rise from cadmia or calimia, and as both these words signified proper calamine, as well as ofenbruch, the latter, perhaps, may at an earlier period have signified furnace-calamine.
[89] Proofs respecting this subject may be found in Salmasius De Homonymis.