^48 Mr. J. Phillips on Ancient Metallurgy and Mining 



thus can sometimes declare the very mode by which thealchy- 

 mist was led to his golden error, and the Chaldaean shepherds 

 to brighter truths. Without this principle of interpretation, 

 many almost modern writers, nay authors of this very century, 

 can sometimes not be understood. The laws of modern geo- 

 logy and zoology, for such there are, and well-founded too, 

 are as much required to put a true construction on some of 

 the writings of Lister and Linnaeus, as the methods of Ray, 

 Linnaeus, and Cuvier are required for the just estimation of 

 Aristotle. We shall probably find the darkest pages of an- 

 tiquity to be precisely those which refer to subjects where our 

 own knowledge is least clear, least collected into lawsof phae- 

 nomena, and most removed from laws of causation. Ought 

 we not, before declaiming on the ignorance of the ancients, to 

 be careful to make allowance for the differences of form in 

 which knowledge presents itself at different periods, as well 

 as for the incompleteness of their records, and the imperfection 

 of our interpretations ? 



Pliny's Natural History appears to me to be precisely in 

 the position of difficulty which has been already alluded to. 

 Its vastness, variety, and seeming disorder, may well deter 

 the most comprehensive master of modern science from duly 

 weighing its mass, or even measuring its surface ; and the 

 evident incompleteness and almost hap-hazard character of its 

 chapters are apt to disgust the student of special branches of 

 science and art. Yet, probably, if for each important branch 

 of human knowledge handled by Pliny, a special editor were 

 set to work, well- versed in the philosophy of his subject, Pliny 

 would take a higher degree on examination, and the history 

 of human knowledge be amended. 



From the thirty-seven books of diffuse and erudite learning, 

 the genuine work of Pliny the elder, let us fix on the part 

 which treats of the nature of metals ; and passing over his 

 lamentations on the useless excess of gold and silver — which 

 may be recommended to the Chancellor of the Exchequer — his 

 accounts of the uses and properties of gold, electrum*, chryso- 

 colla, silver, quicksilver, stibium, scoria argenti, spuma argenti, 

 minium, cinnabar, brass, cadmium, iron, and many compounds 

 of metals, let us pause at the 16th chapter of the 34th book, 

 which treats of the metals of lead, white and black. 



" The most precious of these, the white, is called by the 

 Greeks Kaaairepo^, and fabulously declared to be sought for 

 in isles of the Atlantic, to which it is brought in wicker vessels, 

 covered with leather (vitilibus navigiis corio circumsutis). But 



* Gold with one-fifth of silver. 



