126 C. Keferstein on While Copper. 



polish ; but it is brittle, and it soon tarnishes. On the touch- 

 stone it has the colour of 12 fine silver. It is used in harness- 

 making. 



The white copper of Suhl is altogether different from this, 

 and might more properly be called nickel-copper, by which 

 every mistake might be avoided. 



A combination of nickel and copper, analogous to the ore 

 of Suhl, has indeed, according to different Manuals of Che- 

 mistry, been formed in small quantities by art, and is known 

 in theory ; but nickel, which in its pure state approaches near 

 to silver with regard to its colour, is very difficult of fusion, 

 and this is probably the reason that an alloy of it with copper 

 has not been manufactured on a large scale. 



White copper was indeed known in former ages ; but, alas ! 

 very few accounts of it have reached posterity, and it remains 

 doubtful whether nickel-copper or arsenic-copper was made 

 use of. 



Pliny several times mentions ces candidum ,• once, when 

 he speaks of the Corinthian ore, he seems to point to an alloy 

 of silver : at another place (34, § 48), he cites, as the best 

 metal for specula, an alloy of copper with tin, and ^d of ces 

 candidum. Now, according to modern experience, a compo- 

 sition of copper, tin, and arsenic, produces the best speculum- 

 metal ; and we may therefore believe, that the ces candidum 

 was rather an arsenic-copper than a silver-copper. Aristotle 

 [dc Mirabilibtis, cap. 53) speaks more plainly of white topper, 

 when he says, " The %>x\xoc MQ<r<rvvotx.wv is stated to be ex- 

 tremely shining and white ; it is made, not by adding tin to 

 copper, but by smelting an earth, found in that country, with 

 the copper. It is related, that the first inventor did not in- 

 form any one of his composition, whence it happened that 

 the earlier vessels of this metal were more beautiful than those 

 which were made afterwards." The Mosynbeci, from whom 

 this metal indisputably received its name, were no particular 

 nation ; but, as Strabo tells us, those people of Asia Minor 

 living on the northern shore of the Black Sea, in Colchis, Pon- 

 tus, Paphlagonia, &c, commonly went by that appellation. 

 Now in Paphlagonia lies Pompejopolis, where, from the most 

 ancient times, very important mines were worked for copper 

 and iron, and particularly for arsenical ores. 



The ruins of this place, so important for antiquity, have, ac- 

 cording to Malte-Brun (Annales dcs Voyages, t. xiv. p. 30), 

 been lately discovered near Tasch Kouprou, eight hours' 

 journey from the large place Voyavat, situated on a clay-slate 

 rock; which may be the Sandarracurgium of Strabo, where the 

 chief mines for arsenical ores were situated (axvlupci^ an( ^ a P~ 



pevwov). 



