432 



BOOK IX. 



covered with lids a digit thick, and they are smeared over on the inside with 

 liquid litharge, and on the lid are placed heavy stones. The pots are set on 

 the furnace, and the ore is heated and similarly exhales quicksilver, which 

 fleeing from the heat takes refuge in the lid ; on congealing there, it falls 

 back into the ashes, from which, when washed, the quicksilver is collected. 



Stones. 



-Furnace. 



By these five methods quicksilver may be made, and of these not one is 

 to be despised or repudiated ; nevertheless, if the mine supplies a great 

 abundance of ore, the first is the most expeditious and practical, because a 

 large quantit}' of ore can be reduced at the same time without great expense. ^^ 



^^HisTORiCAL Note on the Metallurgy of Quicksilver. The earliest mention of 

 quicksilver appears to have been by Aristotle (Meteorologica IV, 8, ii), who speaks of it 

 as fiuid silver (argyros chytos). Theophrastus (105) states ; " Such is the production of 

 " quicksilver, which has its uses. This is obtained from cinnabar rubbed with vinegar in a 

 " brass mortar with a brass pestle." (Hill's Trans., p. 139). Theophrastus also (103) 

 mentions cinnabar from Spain and elsewhere. Dioscorides (v, 70) appears to be the first to 

 describe the recovery of quicksilver by distillation : " Quicksilver {hydrargyros, i.e., liquid 

 silver) is made from ammion, which is called cinnabari. An iron bowl containing cinnahari 

 " is put into an earthen vessel and covered over with a cup-shaped lid smeared with clay. 

 " Then it is set on a fire of coals and the soot which sticks to the cover when wiped off and 

 " cooled is quicksilver. Quicksilver is also found in drops falling from the walls of the silver 

 " mines. Some say there are quicksilver mines. It can be kept only in vessels of glass, lead, 

 " tin (?), or silver, for if put in vessels of any other substances it consumes them and flows 



