BOOK XL 529 



raises the door in the manner I have described, and with a long iron hook 

 inserted into the haft of the bar he draws it through the hole in the left wall 

 from the hole in the right wall ; afterward he pushes it back and replaces it. 

 The master then takes out the exhausted liquation cakes nearest to him with 

 the iron hook ; then he pulls out the cakes from the bricks. This hook is 

 two palms high, as many digits wide, and one thick ; its iron handle is two 

 feet long, and the wooden handle eleven feet long. There is also a two- 

 pronged rake with which the " dried " cakes are drawn over to the left side so 

 that they may be seized with tongs ; the prongs of the rake are pointed, 

 and are two palms long, as many digits wide, eind one digit thick ; the iron 

 part of the handle is a foot long, the wooden part nine feet long. The 

 " dried " cakes, taken out of the hearth by the master and his assistants, 

 are seized with other tongs and thrown into the rectangular tank, which is 

 almost filled with water. These tongs are two feet and three palms long, 

 both the handles are round and more than a digit thick, and the ends are 

 bent for a palm and two digits ; both the jaws are a digit and a half wide 

 in front and sharpened ; at the back they are a digit thick, and then gradually 

 taper, and when closed, the interior is two palms and as many digits wide. 



The " dried " cakes which are dripping copper are not immediately dipped 

 into the tank, because, if so, they burst in fragments and give out a sound 

 like thunder. The cakes are afterward taken out of the tank with the 

 tongs, and laid upon the two transverse planks on which the workmen stand ; 

 the sooner they are taken out the easier it is to chip off the copper that 

 has become ash-coloured. Finally, the master, with a spade, raises up the 

 bricks a Uttle from the hearth, while they are still warm. The blade of the 

 spade is a palm and two digits long, the lower edge is sharp, and is a palm 

 and a digit wide, the upper end a palm wide ; its handle is round, the iron 

 part being two feet long, and the wooden part seven and a half feet long. 



On the fourth day the master draws out the hquation thorns which 

 have settled in the passages; they are much richer in silver than those 

 that are made when the silver-lead is hquated from copper in the hquation 

 furnace. The " dried " cakes drip but httle copper, but nearly all their 

 remaining silver-lead and the thorns consist of it, for, indeed, in one 

 centumpondium of " dried " copper there should remain only half an uncia 

 of silver, and there sometimes remain only three drachmae.^^ Some smelters 

 chip off the metal adhering to the bricks with a hammer, in order that it 

 may be melted again ; others, however, crush the bricks xmder the stamps 

 and wash them, and the copper and lead thus collected is melted again. The 

 master, when he has taken these things away and put them in their places, 

 has finished his day's work. 



The assistants take the " dried " cakes out of the tank on the 

 next day, place them on an oak block, and first pound them with rounded 

 hammers in order that the ash-coloured copper may fall away from them, 



**One half uncia or three drachmae of silver would equal either 12 ozs. or 9 ozs. per 

 ton. If we assume the values given for residual copper in the first four charges (note p. 506) of 

 34 ozs., this would mean an extraction of, roughly, 65% of the silver from the exhausted 

 liquation cakes. 



