1 24- C. Keferstein on White Copper. 



opinion, that at each smelting a quantity of white copper was 

 formed, besides the usual red copper, and that the former 

 was not thought worth the trouble of separating from the 

 slags, in which of course it remained. 



How this white copper became formed, is difficult to deter- 

 mine. The result of the chemical analysis is, that it consists 

 merely of a mixture of copper and nickel ; and this mixture 

 may have been produced in three ways : one is, that the cop- 

 per brought from the above-named five mines also contained 

 nickel, and that by means of the nickel thus naturally present, 

 white copper was formed ; another, if we ascribe it to the ores 

 said to be brought from Salzburg; and the third, by suppo- 

 sing that the white copper was formed by means of an arti- 

 ficial addition, made in the process of smelting, in former 

 times. We should declare ourselves for the first way, partly 

 because it is improbable that copper ores should have been 

 brought from Salzburg to Ernstthal, and partly because in 

 several other places not far distant, at Brimmeisel for instance, 

 copper-works have also existed, but no white copper has been 

 produced in them. But whether white copper can be at pre- 

 sent produced from the copper ores of the five mines above 

 named, and in what manner, can only be decided by collect- 

 ing the copper ores from the old mines, and subjecting them 

 to experiments, by which it would also be ascertained whether 

 they contain nickel. It is indeed maintained at Ernstthal and 

 Unterneubrunn, that many workmen of those places, now de- 

 ceased, understood the art of producing white copper, indi- 

 rectly, from the copper ores collected from the old mines. 

 This however is merely traditional ; and those who work in 

 white copper generally like to envelop themselves in a certain 

 mystic darkness respecting their modes of operating. Thus 

 it is usually maintained, that the white copper, in the form in 

 which it occurs, is much too brittle for working, and that in 

 order to render it useful it must first be submitted to a secret 

 process. After minute inquiries, however, we have been in- 

 formed, that it is found of various qualities, and that every 

 piece is not of equal goodness for working ; that much was 

 brittle, but that the best and most pure could be used imme- 

 diately, and at once showed the characters of genuine white 

 copper, — whiteness and malleability. Thus much is certain, 

 that even the most clever workmen in white copper at Unter- 

 neubrunn and Ernstthal, as well as here, and in Zelle, can 

 only produce good white copper from good slags ; and if bad 

 white copper is talked of, it may be owing partly to the slags not 

 having been good for much, and partly to there being an artifi- 

 cial compound in imitation of it, made of a mixture of arsenic 



and 



