79 



mended to the Chancellor of the Exchequer — his accounts of 

 the uses and properties of Gold, Electrum,* Chrysocolla, 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 y.aa-<rtT£fov, 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 

 now it is ascertained to be indigenous in Lusitania and 

 Gallicia, in sandy surface soil, of a black colour, and only dis- 

 tinguished by its weight. Small pebbles [of the ore] also 

 occur, principally in dried beds of streams. The miners [me- 

 tallici] wash these sands, and what subsides they melt in 

 furnaces. 



*•' It is also found with the gold ores (aurariis metallis) which 

 are called stream works (elutia), the stream of water washing 

 out (eluente) black pebbles a little varied with white, and of 

 the same weight as the gold. On this account, in the vessels in 

 which the gold is collected, these pebbles remain with it ; after- 

 wards they are separated in the chimney sf (caminis separantur), 

 and being melted are resolved into plumbum album. 



*' In Gallicia plumbum nigrum is not made, because the 

 adjoining Cantabria [Asturias] so much abounds in that 

 metal. 



" Not out of white plumbum as out of the black can silver be 

 extracted. 



" To solder together [pieces of] plumbum nigrum is imprac- 

 ticable without [the use of] white plumbum, nor the white to 

 the black without the addition of oil. Nor can [pieces of] 

 white plumbum be soldered together without the aid of the 

 black metal." 



• Gold with one-fifth of silver. 



'f What distinctiTe meauing should be attached to fomaces and camini is un- 

 certain. It seems tliat the camini may indicate if not what we call chimneys, at 

 least cavities in or above the furnace. 



