68 



BOOK XXXIII. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF METALS.^ 



CHAP. 1. (1.) — METALS. 



We are now about to speak of metals, of actual wealth/* 

 the standard of comparative value, objects for which we dili- 

 gently search, within the earth, in numerous ways. In one 

 place, for instance, we undermine it for the purpose of obtaining 

 riches, to supply the exigencies of life, searching for either 

 gold or silver, electrum ^ or copper.^ In another place, to 

 satisfy the requirements of luxury, our researches extend to 

 gems and pigments, with which to adorn our fingers * and the 

 walls of our houses : while in a third place, we gratify our 

 rash propensities by a search for iron, which, amid wars and 

 carnage, is deemed more acceptable even than gold. We trace 

 out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, under- 

 mined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should oc- 

 casionally cleave asunder or tremble : as though, forsooth, these 



^ "We now enter upon the Sixth division of Pliny's work, containing an 

 account of mineral substances of all descriptions. — I)r. Bostock. 



^* "Ipsae opes." The metals were looked upon by the ancients as the 

 only true riches. It is in this sense that Ovid says, Metam. B. i. : " Effo- 

 diuntur opes, irritamenta malorum." Pliny applies the term " pretia re- 

 rum " to metals, as forming the unit of value. 



2 Electrum is described in c. 23, as gold mixed with a certain quan- 

 tity of silver. The word " electrum " is also used to signify amber, as in 

 B. iii. c. 30.— B. 



3 "^s ;" by " aes" is here probably meant copper, as the author is speaking 

 of what is dug out of the earth ; it is more fully described in the first two 

 Chapters of the next Book. According to the analysis of Klaproth, the 

 (Bs of the ancients, when employed in works of art, cutting instruments, 

 statues, vases, &c., was the " bronze " of the moderns, a mixture of copper 

 and tin, in which the proportion of tin varied, from a little more than 2 

 to 1.14 per cent, according as the object was to procure a flexible or a 

 hard substance. Agricola speaks of " ses" as synonymous with "cuprum," 

 and Pliny will be found several times in the present Book, speaking of 

 *' aes Cyprium," meaning probably the finest kind of copper, and that with- 

 out alloy. — B. 



* Pliny has already referred to this topic in B. ii. c. 63.— B. 



