Genuine minium ought to have the brilliant colour of the kermes berry;[1028] but when that of inferior quality is used for walls, the brightness of it is sure to be tarnished by the moisture, and this too, although the substance itself is a sort of metallic mildew. In the mines of Sisapo, the veins are composed exclusively of the sandy particles of minium, without the intermixture of any silver whatever; the practice being to melt it like gold. Minium is assayed by the agency of gold in a state of incandescence: if it has been adulterated, it will turn black, but if genuine, it retains its colour. I find it stated also that minium is adulterated with lime; the proper mode of detecting which, is similarly to employ a sheet of red hot iron, if there should happen to be no gold at hand.
To objects painted with minium the action of the sun and moon is highly injurious. The proper method of avoiding this inconvenience, is to dry the wall, and then to apply, with, a hair brush, hot Punic wax, melted with oil; after which, the varnish must be heated, with an application of gall-nuts, burnt to a red heat, till it quite perspires. This done, it must be smoothed down with rollers[1029] made of wax, and then polished with clean linen cloths, like marble, when made to shine. Persons employed in the manufactories in preparing minium protect the face with masks of loose bladder-skin, in order to avoid inhaling the dust, which is highly pernicious; the covering being at the same time sufficiently transparent to admit of being seen through.
Minium is employed also for writing[1030] in books; and the letters made with it being more distinct, even on gold or marble, it is used for the inscriptions upon tombs.
CHAP. 41. (8.)—HYDRARGYROS. REMEDIES DERIVED FROM MINIUM.
Human industry has also discovered a method of extracting hydrargyros[1031] from the inferior minium, a substitute for quicksilver, the further mention of which was deferred, a few pages before,[1032] to the present occasion. There are two methods of preparing this substance; either by pounding minium and vinegar with a brazen pestle and mortar, or else by putting minium into flat earthen pans, covered with a lid, and then enclosed in an iron seething-pot well luted with potter’s clay. A fire is then lighted under the pans, and the flame kept continually burning by the aid of the bellows; which done, the steam is carefully removed, that is found adhering to the lid, being like silver in colour, and similar to water in its fluidity. This liquid, too, is easily made to separate in globules, which, from their fluid nature, readily unite.[1033]
As it is a fact generally admitted, that minium is a poison,[1034] I look upon all the recipes given as highly dangerous which recommend its employment for medicinal purposes; with the exception, perhaps, of those cases in which it is applied to the head or abdomen, for the purpose of arresting hæmorrhage, due care being taken that it is not allowed to penetrate to the viscera, or to touch any sore. Beyond such cases as these, for my own part, I should never recommend it to be used in medicine.
CHAP. 42.—THE METHOD OF GILDING SILVER.
At the present day silver is gilded almost exclusively by the agency of hydrargyros;[1035] and a similar method should always be employed in laying gold leaf upon copper. But the same fraud which ever shows itself so extremely ingenious in all departments of human industry, has devised a plan of substituting an inferior material, as already mentioned.[1036]