322 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



strate, one of particular interest, in consequence of the fact that zinc, 

 as an isolated metal, has only been known in Europe in compara- 

 tively recent times, 1 though several of its combinations with other 

 metals were made known to Western nations by the traders who 

 brought them from the far East at very remote periods of the world's 

 history. 



In several parts of India traces of zinc ores have been met with 

 (chiefly the sulphide or blende) in association with ores of copper and 

 other metals ; and to this circumstance may perhaps be attributed 

 the fact that Abdul Fazl, the author of the Ain-i- Akbari, in an 

 enumeration of metals which were obtained in the rivers of the 

 Subah of Lahore, includes brass. 2 It is conceivable that this refers 

 to a metal obtained in smelting an undesigned or natural combi- 

 nation of ores, which was really brass instead of copper, and hence 

 the ridicule with which the statement has been criticised is perhaps 

 not exactly deserved. 



That brass was discovered first by such an accident appears to 

 be generally admitted. Afterwards it was manufactured by the 

 addition of natural calamine to molten copper, and even, when that 

 was not obtainable, by the addition of artificial calamine scraped 

 from the chimneys of smelting furnaces. 3 Upon this subject, and 

 its connexion with the alchemist's search for gold, some information 

 will be found in Beckmann's History of Inventions. 4 ' 



Beckmann, who regrets the scantiness of the available informa- 

 tion about India, says that the zinc came from China, Bengal, 

 Malacca, and the Malabar Coast, and adds that an Englishman 

 went to India in the 17th century to discover the process used there 

 in the manufacture, and returned with an account that it was 

 obtained by distillation per descensum. I have not yet been able 

 to identify this Englishman. 



By a curious fatality, the principal zinc mine in India, of which 

 we have certain knowledge, was described by Col. Tod, 5 incidentally, 



1 The name is first mentioned by Paracelsus in 1616, though the metal appears to 

 have been known to Albertus Magnus in the 13th century. 



2 Gladwin's Ed., vol. ii. p. 109. 



3 Known to Albertus Magnus in the 13th century. 



4 See Bonn's Ed., ii. p. 32. 



5 Kajasthan, vol. i. p. 504. 



