[1589] See Beckmann, Hist. Inv. Vol. I. p. 415. Bohn’s Edition.
[1590] In the former Editions the whole of the next ten lines, from this word down to “sun” is omitted. It is evident that it has been left out by accident, in consequence of the recurrence of the word “Campano.” The hiatus has been supplied from the Bamberg MS., and the reading is supported by the text of Isidorus, Orig. B. xvi. c. 20, s. 9.
[1591] “Collectanei.”
[1592] “Formalis.”
[1593] “Plumbi nigri”—“black lead,” literally, but not what we mean by that name.
[1594] The “Grecian” colour. It does not appear to have been identified, nor does it appear what it has to do with moulds.
[1595] “Pot” copper, or brass.
[1596] Beckmann is of opinion that this “plumbum argentarium” was a mixture of equal parts of tin and lead. Hist. Inv. Vol. II, p. 220. Bohn’s Edition.
[1597] Most of these preparations are in reality highly dangerous. Oxides, however, or salts of copper, have been employed internally with success, acting by alvine evacuation and by vomiting. The Crocus Veneris of the old chemists was an oxide of copper. It is still used by the peasants of Silesia, Ajasson says.
[1598] It is obvious that the “cadmia” here described must be an essentially different substance from the “cadmia” mentioned in the second Chapter of this Book, that being a natural production, possibly calamine or hydrosilicate or carbonate of zinc; while the “cadmia” of this Chapter is a furnace-calamine, a product of the fusion of the ore of copper, or zinc.—B. It is evident, too, that copper ores, impregnated with zinc or calamine, also passed under this name. See Beckmann, Hist. Inv. Vol. II. pp. 33-35, Bohn’s Edition, where this subject is discussed at considerable length: also the treatise by Delafosse, in Lemaire’s Edition of Pliny.