[79] Page 26, Line 15. Page 26, line 12. quas Clampas nostri vocant.—The name clamp for the natural kiln formed by heaping up the bricks, with ventilating spaces and fuel within the heap, is still current.
[80] Page 26, line 39. Page 26, line 38. Pluebat in Taurinis ferrum.—The occurrence is narrated by Scaliger, De Subtilitate, Exercitat. cccxxiii.:
"Sed falsò lapidis pluviam creas tu ex pulvere hausto à nubibus, atque in lapidem condensato. At ferrum, quod pluit in Taurinis, cuius frustum apud nos extat, qua ex fodina sustulit nubes? Tribus circiter annis antè, quàm ab Rege provincia illa recepta esset, pluit ferro multis in locis, sed raris" (p. 434, Editio Lutetiæ, 1557).
"During the latter ages of the Roman Empire the city of Augusta Taurinorum seems to have been commonly known (as was the case in many instances in Transalpine Gaul) by the name of the tribe to which it belonged, and is called simply Taurini in the Itineraries, as well as by other writers, hence its modern name of Torino or Turin" (Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geographies, p. 1113).
There exists a considerable literature respecting falls of meteors and of meteoric iron. Livy, Plutarch, and Pliny all record examples. See also Remarks concerning stones said to have fallen from the clouds, by Edward King (London, 1796); Chladni, Ueber den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen (Riga, 1794); Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxxviii., pp. 37 and 183; vol. lxxxv., p. 103; vol. xcii., p. 174; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. i. (p. 97 of London edition, 1860); C. Rammelsberg, Die chemische Natur der Meteoriten (Berlin, 1879); Maskelyne, Some lecture-notes on Meteorites printed in Nature, vol. xii., pp. 485, 504, and 520, 1875. Maskelyne denominates as siderites those meteorites which consist chiefly of iron. They usually contain from 80 to 95 per cent. of iron, often alloyed with nickel. This meteoric iron is sometimes so pure that it can at once be forged by the smith. An admirable summary of the whole subject is to be found in L. Fletcher's An Introduction to the study of Meteorites, publisht by the British Museum (Nat. Hist.), London, 1896.
[81] Page 27, line 3. Page 26, line 41. vt Cardanus ... scribit.—The passage runs:
"Vidimus anno MDX cum cecidisset è cœlo lapides circiter MCC in agrum fluvio Abduæ conterminum, ex his unum CXX pondo, alium sexaginta delati fuerunt ad reges Gallorũ satrapes, plurimi: colos ferrugineus, durities eximia, odor sulphureus" (Cardan, De Rerum Varietate, lib. xiiii., cap. lxxii.; Basil., 1557, p. 545).
[82] Page 27, line 9. Page 27, line 2. aut stannum, aut plumbum album. Although most authorities agree in translating plumbum album or plumbum candidum as "tin" (which is unquestionably the meaning in such examples as Pliny's Nat. Hist., xxxiv. 347, and iv. 16; or Strabo, iii. 147), nevertheless it is certain that here plumbum album is not given as a synonym of stannum and therefore is not tin. That Gilbert meant either spelter or pewter is pretty certain. He based his metallic terms mainly upon Encelius (Christoph Entzelt) whose De Re Metallica was published at Frankfurt in 1551. From this work are taken the following passages:
p. 61. De Plumbo candido. Cap. XXXI.