104 plint's natural histobt. [Book XXXIII. 



ried away ; for otherwise the shafts would soon be choked up 

 by it. 



The gold found by excavating with galleries does not require 

 to be melted, but is pure gold at once. In these excavations, 

 too, it is found in lumps, as also in the shafts which are sunk, 

 sometimes exceeding ten pounds even. The names given to 

 these lumps are "palagae," and " palacurnae,"*' while the gold 

 found in small grains is known as ** baluce." The ulex that 

 is used for the above purpose is dried and burnt, after which 

 the ashes of it are washed upon a bed of grassy turf, in order 

 that the gold may be deposited thereupon. 



Asturia, Gallsecia, and Lusitania furnish in this manner, 

 yearly, according to some authorities, twenty thousand pounds' 

 weight of gold, the produce of Asturia forming the major part. 

 Indeed, there is no part of the world that for centuries has 

 maintained such a continuous fertility in gold. I have already*^ 

 mentioned that by an ancient decree of the senate, the soil of 

 Italy has been protected from these researches; otherwise, 

 there would be no land more fertile in metals. There is ex- 

 tant also a censorial law relative to the gold mines of Yictumulae, 

 in the territory of Yercellae,^^ by which the farmers of the 

 revenue were forbidden to employ more than five thousand 

 men at the works. 



CHAP. 22. OEPIMENT. 



There is also one other method of procuring gold ; by making 

 it from orpiment,^^ a mineral dug from the surface of the earth 

 in Syria, and much used by painters. It is just the colour of 

 gold, but brittle, like mirror-stone,^^ in fact. This substance 

 greatly excited the hopes of the Emperor Caius,^^ a prince who 

 was most greedy for gold. He accordingly had a large quantity 

 of it melted, and really did obtain some excellent gold ;^^ but 

 then the proportion was so extremely small, that he found him- 

 self a loser thereby. Such was the result of an experiment 

 prompted solely by avarice : and this too, although the price 



5° All these names, no doubt, are of Spanish origin, although Salmasius 

 would assign them a Greek one. 



°i In B. iii. c. 24. 52 gee B. iii. c. 21. 



" " Auripigmentum." Yellow sulphuret of arsenic. See B. rxxiv. c. 56. 



^ " Lapis specularis." See B. xxxvi. c. 43. ^^ Caligula. 



^6 It was accidently mixed with the ore of arsenic, no doubt, unless, in- 

 deed, the emperor was imposed upon. 



