METALLURGY. 257 



Dr. Pryce says, " * the late Dr. I. Lawson obserring that the 

 flowers of lapis calaminaris were the same as those of zinc, and 

 that its effects on copper were also the same with that semi. metal, 

 never remitted his endeavours till he found the method of sepa- 

 rating pur<- zinc from that ore." And Dr. Campbell, in his Sur- 

 vey of Britain, is still more particular; " + the credit, if not the 

 value of calamine, is very much raised since an ingenious country, 

 man of ours discovered that it was the true mine of zinc ; this 

 countryman was Dr. I. Lawson, who died before he had made any 

 advantage of his discovery." The authors of the Supplement to 

 Chambers' Dictionary, published in 1753, expressly affirm, that 

 ** { L)r. Lawson was the first person who shewed that calamine 

 contained zinc ; we have now on foot at home a work established 

 by the discoverer of this ore, which will probably make it very 

 unnecessary to bring any zinc into England." To all this I shall 

 only add one testimony more, from which it may appear that the 

 English knew how to extract zinc from calamine, before Mr. Van 

 Swab taught the Swedes the method of doing it; though this gen- 

 tleman, unless I have been misinformed, instructed the late Mr. 

 Champion of Bristol, either in the use of blackjack for the same 

 purpose as ca'amine, or taught him some improvements in the 

 method of obtaining zinc from its ores. The testimony occurs in 

 a dissertation of Henckel's on Zinc, published in 1737: he is there 

 speaking of the great hopes which some persons had entertained of 

 the possibility of obtaining zinc from calamine ; hopes, he says, 

 which had been realized in England, Ce qu'un Anglois arrive de. 

 puis peu de Bristol, dit avoir vu reussir dans son pays . 



The manufactory, however, of zinc was not established at Bris. 

 tol till about the year 1743, when Mr. Champion obtained a patent 

 for the making of zinc. About 200 tons of zinc are annually made 

 at the place where the manufactory was first set up ; and about 

 seven years ago, zinc began to be made at Henham, near Bristol, 

 by James Emerson, who had been many years manager of that 

 branch under Mr. Champion, and his successors in the business. 



Mineral. Cornub. p. 46. 



t Polit. Surv. of Brit. Vol. II. p. 35. 



t Artie. Calam. & Zinc. 



This observation was first published in the 4th vol. of the Acta Pbysico- 

 Medica Acad. Nat Car. 1737 ; but I have made the quotation from the ed. of 

 Henckel'i Woiki, published at Paris, 1760, Vol. III. p. 494. 



VOL, TI. S 



