1014 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 287- 



being enveloped in tliem, requires the use 

 of quicksilver for its extraction ; and some- 

 times ores are found which are not worked 

 because of the Platina in them (a mineral 

 of such resistance that it is not easy to 

 break it, nor to crush it upon an anvil), for 

 this substance is not affected by calcination, 

 nor is there any means of extracting the 

 metal which it contains, except at the cost 

 of much labor and expense. 



From the mention here made, platinum 

 is evidently a well-known substance, and it 

 is by no means improbable that earlier defi- 

 nite mention of platinum may yet be found. 

 In this connection it is interesting to note 

 that there have been many efforts to show 

 that platinum was known at much earlier 

 periods. Soberer * considers from a passage 

 in Balbin's History of Bohemia (P. I., ch. 

 xiv., p. 4) that platinum was known to the 

 Bohemian Jesuits toward the end of the 

 seventeenth century, occurring in the Eie- 

 sengebirge, for he speaks of a kind of gold so 

 white that one would swear it was silver, f 

 were it not for its weight, ductility, infusi- 

 bility and insolubility in nitric acid. Ju- 

 lius Scaliger's 'Exercitationes Exotericae de 

 Subtilitate,' published at Frankfort in 1601, 

 makes mention of an infusible metal found 

 in the mines of Mexico and Darien, which 

 might seem to indicate platinum. % There 

 have been, moreover, a number of efforts to 

 show that platinum was known to antiquity, 

 under the names of electrwn or of jylumbum 

 candidum. Cortinovis § considers that the 

 electrum of the ancients was platinum, and 

 proves it to his own satisfaction from the 



*Ang. J. Chem. (Seherer), 6, 633 (1801). 



t Aurum album, quod argentum esse jurares, nisi 

 auro familiares proprietates aliud suaderent, pon- 

 dus scilicet, extensibilitas, vis eludendi ignem et 

 aquam fortem, solubilitas in aqua regia, etc. 



J Praeteria Bcito infunduribus, qui traotus est inter 

 Mexicnm et Darien, fodinas esse auricalcbi, quod 

 nullo igni, nullis hispanicis artibus, hac tenus lique- 

 scere potuit. 



i Opuscoli Scelti Sulla Scienze, etc. Milano, 1760. 



Bible, from classic historians of nature and 

 art, from poetry and from Homer.* A 

 similar view is held by Schweigger,f where 

 Pausanius (6, chap. 12, p. 406. Ed. Ca- 

 saub.) is quoted as mentioning electrum, 

 from which Augustus had made columns, 

 as occurring in nature in the sands of the 

 river Eridanus, and as being very rare, hence 

 much more valuable than the other kind 

 of electrum which is merely an alloy of 

 silver and gold. In 1850 Paravey makes J 

 a strong effort to show that Pliny when 

 speaking in his Natural 'Kistov j of j^lumbum 

 candidimi, refers to platinum. Pliny speaks 

 indeed of a lead, heavier and more ductile 

 than gold and in Book 34, Chapter 16, gives 

 a definite description of it. To use the 

 quaint translation of Philemon Holland, 

 Doctor of Physicke, published first in 1601 : 

 " Now insueth the discourse of lead, and 

 the nature of it ; of which there be two 

 principall kindes, the blacke, and the white. 

 The richest of all, and that which carrieth 

 the greatest price, is that which we in 

 Latine name Plumbum candidum, i. e. the 

 white bright lead and the Greeks Cassi- 

 teron. But I hold it a meere fable and 

 vaine tale, that all of it is fetched as farre 

 as from the Islands of the Atlanticke Sea, 

 and that the inhabitants of those parts doe 

 conveigh it in little twiggen boats, couered 

 all ouer with feathers. For the truth is 

 that there is found of it in these dales 

 within Portugall and Gallaecia, growing 

 ebbe upon the opmost face of the earth, be- 

 ing among the sands, of a black colour, and 

 by the weight only is knowne from the rest 

 of the soile : and here and there among, a 



* As an instance of the views of Cortinovis may be 

 cited the lines : 



Atria cinxit ebur, trabibus solidatur ahenis 



Culmen et in celsas surgunt electro columnas, 

 from Claudian's 'Eapeof Proserpina' (Book I., v. 164) 

 where it is considered that electrum must mean plat- 

 inum. 



■f J. praM. Chem., 3i, 385 (IBiS). 



t Compt. Bend., 31, 179 (1850). 



