BOOK IX. 



435 



Others reduce the ore in iron pans as next described. They lay small 

 pieces of dry wood alternately straight and transversely upon bricks, one and 

 a half feet apart, and set fire to it. Near it they put small iron pans lined 

 on the inside with lute, and full of broken ore ; then when the wind 

 blows the flame of the fierce fire over the pans, the bismuth drips out of the 

 ore ; wherefore, in order that it may run, the ore is stirred with the tongs ; but 

 when they decide that all the bismuth is exuded, they seize the pans with 

 the tongs and remove them, and pour out the bismuth into empty pans, and 

 by turning many into one they make cakes. Others reduce the ore, when it is 

 not mixed with cadmia,^^ in a furnace similar to the iron furnace. In this 

 case they make a pit and a crucible of crushed earth mixed with pulverised 



-Wood. 



B — Bricks. C — Pans. D — Furnace. E — Crucible. F — Pipe. 

 G — Dipping-pot. 



charcoal, and into it they put the broken ore, or the concentrates from 

 washing, from which they make more bismuth. If they put in ore, 

 they reduce it with charcoal and small dried wood mixed, and if concentrates, 

 they use charcoal only ; they blow both materials with a gentle blast from 



•This cadmia is given in the German translation as kobelt. It is probably the cobalt- 

 arsenic-bismuth minerals common in Saxony. A large portion of the world's supply of 

 bismuth to-day comes from the cobalt treatment works near Schneeberg. For further 

 discussion of cadmia see note on p. 112. 



