APPENDIX B. 



613 



already skilled than to instruct tlie novice. The books appear to have grown by accretions 

 from many sources, for a large number of methods are given over and over again in the same 

 book with slight variations. We reproduce the title page of our earliest copy. 



The following is a list of these booklets so far as we have been able to discover actual 



As mentioned under the Niitzlich Bergbiichlein, our copy of that work, printed in 1533, 

 contains only a portion of the Probierbiichlein. Ferguson^^ mentions an edition of 1608, and the 

 Freiberg School of Mines Catalogue gives also Frankfort, 1608, and Niirnberg, 1706. The 

 British Museum copy of earliest date, like the title page reproduced, contains no date. The 

 title page woodcut, however, in the Museum copy is referred from that above, possibly indi- 

 cating an earlier date of the Museum copy. 



The booklets enumerated above vary a great deal in contents, the successive prints 

 representing a sort of growth bj' accretion. The first portion of our earliest edition is devoted 

 to weights, in which the system of " lesser weights " (the principle of the " assay ton ") is 

 explained. Following this are exhaustive lists of touch-needles of various composition. 

 Directions are given with regard to assay furnaces, cupels, muffles, scorifiers, and crucibles, 

 granulated and leaf metals, for washing, roasting, and the preparation of assay charges. 

 Various reagents, including glass-gall, litharge, salt, iron filings, lead, " alkali", talc, argol, 

 saltpetre, sal-ammoniac, alum, vitriol, lime, sulphur, antimony, aqt<a fortis, or scheid- 

 wasser, etc., are made use of. Various assays are described and directions given for crucible, 

 scorification, and cupellation tests. The latter part of the book is devoted to the refining 

 and parting of precious metals. Instructions ^re given for the separation of silver from iron, 

 from lead, and from antimony ; of gold from sih sr with antimony (sulphide) and sulphur, or 

 with sulphur alone, with " scheidwasser," and by cementation with salt ; of gold from copper 

 with sulphur and with lead. The amalgamation of gold and silver is mentioned. 



^^Bibliotheca Chemica. 



