

in Brigantia and other parts of Britain. 97 



mended to the Chancellor of the Exchequer — his accounts of the 

 uses and properties of gold, electrum,* chrysocolla, silver, quick- 

 silver, stibium, scoria argenti, spuma argenti, minium, cinnabar, 

 brass, cadmium, iron, and many compounds of metals, let us pause 

 at the 16th chapter of the 34th book, which treats of the metals 

 of lead, white and black. 



" The most precious of these, the white, is called by the Greeks 

 Kaorafre^o;, and fabulously declared to be sought for in isles of the 

 Atlantic, to which it is brought in wicker vessels, covered with 

 leather, (vitilibus navigiis corio circumsutis. ) But now it is ascer- 

 tained to be indigenous in Lusitaoia and Gallicia, in sandy surface 

 soil, of a black color, and only distinguished by its weight. Small 

 pebbles [of the ore] also occur principally in dried beds of streams. 

 The miners [metallicij wash these sands, and what subsides they 

 melt in furnaces. 



"It is also found with the gold ores (aurariis metallis) which 

 are called stream works (elutia), the stream of water washing out 

 (eluente) black pebbles a little varied with white, and of the same 

 weight as the gold. On this account, in the vessels in which the 

 gold is collected, these pebbles remain with it ; afterwards they 

 are separated in the chimneys! (caminis separantur), and being 

 melted are resolved into plumbum album. 



"In Gallicia plumbum nigrum is not made, because the ad- 

 joining Cantabria [Asturias] so much abounds in that metal. 



" Not out of white plumbum as out of the black can silver be 

 extracted. 



" To solder together [pieces of J plumbum nigrum is impracti- 

 cable without [the use of J white plumbum, nor the white to the 

 black without the addition of oil. Nor can [pieces of] white plumb- 

 um be soldered together without the aid of the black metal. 



" That [plumbum] album was in esteem during the Trojan time 

 Homer is witness, who calls it xaauir^no;. 



"Of plumbum nigrum the source is double : either it comes 

 from its own vein, without admixture, or grows with silver, and 

 is melted while mixed with that metal. The part which is first 

 liquid is called stanniim,J that which flows next is silver, that 

 which remains in the furnace galena,^ which is the third portion 

 of the vein (or ore). This being again melted|| yields plumbum 

 nigrum, [the other] two parts [of the ore] being deduct ed." 



Gold with one-fifth of silver. 

 .t What distinctive meaning should be attached to furnace- and cainim is nneer- 

 ^n. It seems that the camini may indicate, if not what we call chimney at least 

 cavities m or above the furnace. t . . ... 



X Analogoua to this is the process of separating silvery lead from mere lead, in- 

 vented by H. L. Pattison, Esq. , , . w 

 v Lib. x.vxiv, cap. 18. Est et molybdsena, quam alibi galenam vocavimus, plunibi 

 jJgenti vena communis. 4 . . . , - , 

 I At the present day we should perform this melting of the n dual galena in 

 the slag-hearth, Avitli a flux. 

 Second s^ RIE s, Vol. VITI, No. 22.— Tuly, 1849. 13 



