426 BOOK IX. 
hot, and then mixed with crushed stone which melts. Then a crucible 
is made in the hearth of the smith's furnace, from the same moistened 
powder from which are made the forehearths in front of the furnaces in 
which ores of gold or silver are smelted; the width of this crucible is 
about one and a half feet and the depth one foot. The bellows are so 
placed that the blast may be blown through the nozzle into the middle 
of the crucible. Then the whole of the crucible is filled with the best 
charcoal, and it is surrounded by fragments of rock to hold in place the pieces 
of iron and the superimposed charcoal. As soon as all the charcoal 
is kindled and the crucible is glowing, a blast is blown from the bellows 
and the master pours in gradually as much of the mixture of iron and flux 
as he wishes. Into the middle of this, when it is melted, he puts four iron 
masses each weighing thirty pounds, and heats them for five or six hours in a 
fierce fire; he frequently stirs the melted iron with a bar, so that the small 
pores in each mass absorb the minute particles, and these particles by their 
own strength consume and expand the thick particles of the masses, which they 
render soft and similar to dough. Afterward the master, aided by his 
assistant, takes out a mass with the tongs and places it on the anvil, where 
it is pounded by the hammer which is alternately raised and dropped by 
means of the water-wheel; then, without delay, while it is still hot, he 
throws it into water and tempers it; when it is tempered, he places it again 
on the anvil, and breaks it with a blow from the same hammer. Then at 
once examining the fragments, he decides whether the iron in some part or 
other, or as a whole, appears to be dense and changed into steel; if so, he seizes 
one mass after another with the tongs, and taking them out he breaks them 
into pieces. Afterward he heats the mixture up again, and adds a portion 
afresh to take the place of that which has been absorbed by the masses. This 
restores the energy of that which is left, and the pieces of the masses are again 
put back into the crucible and made purer. Each of these, after having 
been heated, is seized with the tongs, put under the hammer and shaped 
into a bar. While they are still glowing, he at once throws them into the very 
coldest nearby running water, and in this manner, being suddenly condensed, 
they are changed into pure steel, which is much harder and whiter than iron. 
The ores of the other metals are not smelted in furnaces. Quicksilver 
ores and also antimony are melted in pots, and bismuth in troughs. 
I will first speak of quicksilver. This is collected when found in pools 
formed from the outpourings of the veins and stringers; it is cleansed with 
vinegar and salt, and then it is poured into canvas or soft leather, through 
which, when squeezed and compressed, the quicksilver runs out into a pot or 
pan. The ore of quicksilver is reduced in double or single pots. If in double 
pots, then the upper one is of a shape not very dissimilar to the glass ampullas 
used by doctors, but they taper downward toward the bottom, and the 
lower ones are little pots similar to those in which men and women make 
cheese, but both are larger than these; it is necessary to sink the lower 
pots up to the rims in earth, sand, or ashes. The ore, broken up into small 
pieces is put into the upper pots; these having been entirely closed up 
