428 BOOK IX. 



The pots, lest they should become defective, are moulded from the best 

 potters' clay, for if there are defects the quicksilver flies out in the fumes. 

 If the fumes give out a very sweet odour it indicates that the quicksilver is 

 being lost, and since this loosens the teeth, the smelters and others standing by, 

 warned of the evil, turn their backs to the wind, which drives the fumes in 

 the opposite direction ; for this reason, the building should be open around 

 the front and the sides, and exposed to the wind. If these pots are made 

 of cast copper they last a long time in the fire. This process for reducing the 

 ores of quicksilver is used by most people. 



In a similar manner the antimony ore,^'' if free from other metals, is reduced 

 in upper pots which are twice as large as the lower ones. Their size, however, 

 depends on the cakes, which have not the same weight everywhere ; for in 

 some places they are made to weigh six librae, in other places ten, and else- 

 where twenty. When the smelter has concluded his operation, he extin- 

 guishes the fire with water, removes the lids from the pots, throws earth mixed 

 with ash around and over them, and when they have cooled, takes out the 

 cakes from the pots. 



"'Agricola draws no sharp line of distinction between antimony the metal, and its 

 sulphide. He uses the Roman term stibi or stibium (Interpretatio, — Spiesglas) throughout 

 this book, and evidently in most cases means the sulphide, but in others, particularly in 

 parting gold and silver, metallic antimony would be reduced out. We have been in much 

 doubt as to the term to introduce into the text, as the English " stibnite " carries too much 

 precision of meaning. Originally the " antimony " of trade was the sulphide. Later, with 

 the application of that term to the metal, the sulphide was termed " grey antimony," and 

 we have either used stibium for lack of better alternative, or adopted " grey antimony." 

 The method described by Agricola for treating antimony sulphide is still used in the Harz, in 

 Bohemia, and elsewhere. The stibnite is liquated out at a low heat and drips from the upper 

 to the lower pot. The resulting purified antimony sulphide is the modern commercial 

 " crude antimony " or " grey antimony." 



Historical Note on the Metallurgy of Antimony. The Egyptologists have 

 adopted the term " antimony " for certain cosmetics found in Egyptian tombs from a very 

 early period. We have, however, failed to find any reliable analyses which warrant this 

 assumption, and we believe that it is based on the knowledge that antimony was used as a 

 base for eye ointments in Greek and Roman times, and not upon proper chemical investiga- 

 tion. It may be that the ideograph which is interpreted as antimony may really mean that 

 substance, but we only protest that the chemist should have been called in long since. In 

 St. Jerome's translation of the Bible, the cosmetic used by Jezebel (ii. Kings ix, 30) and 

 by the lady mentioned by Ezekiel (xxiii, 40), " who didst wash thyself and paintedst thine 

 eyes " is specifically given as siihio. Our modern translation carries no hint of the composition 

 of the cosmetic, and whether some of the Greek or Hebrew MSS. do furnish a basis for such 

 translation we cannot say. The Hebrew term for this mineral was kohl, which subsequently 

 passed into " alcool " and " alkohol " in other languages, and appears in the Spanish Bible 

 in the above passage in Ezekiel as alcoholaste. The term antimonium seems to have been 

 first used in Latin editions of Geber published in the latter part of the 15th Century. In 

 any event, the metal is clearly mentioned by Dioscorides (ist Century), who calls it stimmi, 

 and Pliny, who termed it stibium, and they leave no doubt that it was used as a cosmetic for 

 painting the eyebrows and dilating the eyes. Dioscorides (v, 59) says : " The best stimmi 

 ' is very brilliant and radiant. When broken it divides into layers with no part earthy or 

 ' dirty ; it is brittle. Some call it stimmi, others platyophthalmon (wide eyed) ; others 

 ' larbason, others gynaekeion (feminine). . . . It is roasted in a ball of dough with 

 ' charcoal until it becomes a cinder. . . . It is also roasted by putting it on live charcoal 

 ' and blowing it. If it is roasted too much it becomes lead." Pliny states (xxxiii, 33 and 

 34) : " In the same mines in which silver is found, properly speaking there is a stone froth. 

 ' It is white and shining, not transparent ; is called stimmi, or stibi, or alabastrum, and larbasis. 

 ' There are two kinds of it, the male and the female. The most approved is the female, the 

 ' male being more uneven, rougher, less heavy, not so radiant, and more gritty. The female 

 ' kind is bright and friable, laminar and not globular. It is astringent and refrigerative, 

 ' and its principal use is for the eyes. . . . It is burned in manure in a furnace, is 

 ' quenched with milk, ground with rain water in a mortar, and while thus turbid it is poured 

 ' into a copper vessel and purified with nitrum .... above all in roasting it care 



