Iranian Minerals — Zinc 513 



the quarries are located on the shores of Hind and Sind. This is prob- 

 ably intended for vitriol or sulphate of copper. 1 



In Chinese fou-U, the second element H ("stone") does not form 

 part of the transcription; the term means simply "Vou stone," and Vou 

 (*tu) reproduces the first syllable of Persian tutiya, which, on the basis 

 of the Sui Annals, we are obliged to assign also to the Middle-Persian 

 language. To derive the Chinese word from Turkish tiij, as proposed 

 by Watters, 2 and accepted without criticism by Hirth, 3 is utterly im- 

 possible. The alleged Turkish word occurs only in Osmanli and other 

 modern dialects, where it is plainly a Persian loan-word, but not in 

 Uigur, as wrongly asserted by Hirth. This theory seems to imply that 

 the element Si should form part of the transcription; this certainly is 

 out of the question, as 3J represents ancient *§ek or *sak, *zak, and 

 could not reproduce a palatal. For the rest, the Chinese records point 

 to Iran, not to the Turks, who had no concern whatever with the 

 whole business. 4 Two variations of the Persian word have penetrated 

 into the languages of Europe. The Arabs carried their tutiya into 

 Spain, where it appears as atutia with the Arabic article; in Portuguese 

 we have tutia, in French tutie, in Italian tuzia, in English tutty. A final 

 palatal occurs in the series Osmanli tuj or tuni, Neo-Greek tovvt£i, 

 Albanian tut, Serbian and Bulgarian tut, Rumanian tuciu. Whether 

 Sanskrit tuttha, as has been assumed, is to be connected with the Per- 

 sian word, remains doubtful to me: the Sanskrit word refers only to 

 green or blue vitriol. 5 It is noteworthy that Persian birinj ("brass"), a 

 more recent variant of pirin (Kurd pirinjok, Armenian plinj), 6 has not 

 migrated into any foreign language, for I am far from being convinced 

 that our word "bronze" should be traceable to this type. 7 



The Japanese pronunciation of 1^ 5 is tuseki. The Japanese used 



1 A curious error occurs in Feldhaus' Technik (col. 1367), where it is asserted, 

 "Qazwlnl says about 600 that zinc is known in China, and could also be made 

 flexible there." Qazwlnl wrote his cyclopaedia in 1 134, and says nothing about 

 zinc in China (cf. Ruska, Steinbuch des Qazwlnl, p. 11); but he mentions a tutiya 

 mine in Spain (G. Jacob, Studien in arabischen Geographen, p. 13). 



s Essays on the Chinese Language, p. 359. 



1 Chau Ju-kua, p. 81. Tou-Si does not mean "white copper" in the passage 

 under notice, but means "brass." "White copper" is a Chinese and quite different 

 alloy (see below, p. 555). 



* It is likewise odd to connect Italian tausia (properly taunia) and German 

 tauschieren with this word. This is just as well as to derive German tusche from 

 an alleged Chinese fuse (Hirth, Chines. Studien, p. 226). 



6 P. C. Ray, History of Hindu Chemistry, 2d ed., Vol. II, p. 25. 



6 Hubschmann, Persische Studien, p. 27. 



7 O. Schrader, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, Vol. II, p. 73. 



