MINERALOGY. 213 
e,. Of coarfe, v/edge-Iike fcales, from 
Kongruben, at Gellebeck in Norway *. 
SECT, CCXXVI. 
O BSERVATIONS Oil BiSMUTH. 
Although Mr. Pott has, in a feparate treatife 
^n bifmuth, fhewn, that it is diflolved without 
giving any colour to the folution, and that it is 
precipitated with pure .water; and, though the 
mine-mafter Mr. Brandt has likewife, in the 
Acia Upfalienjia for the year 1735, given an ac- 
curate hiftory of the cobalt, v/e find neverthelefs 
in fome new authors fuch a definition of bifmuth, 
as inclydes at the fame time the principal cha- 
raflers of the cobalt, viz that of giving to glafs a 
blue colour, and to tinge folutions red. This 
confufion proceeds from the bifmutli being com- 
monly found among cobalt ores, and that it can- 
not be feparated from it but by the w^ay of eliqua- 
tion ; during which the cobalt, as being lefs fuii- 
ble, remains, and is by the workmen called Vif- 
mut graupe^ or Bifmuth grains. 
This error is excufabie in thofe who do not pre- 
tend to maintain and vindicate their ignorance, it 
having been the fate of the femi-metals to be but 
very little examined. If the alchemifls had not 
thought the quickfilver, antimony, and zink, fit 
for their purpofes, w^e fhould very likely have ftill 
wanted many of thofe advantages, which they af- 
^ This mineralifed bifmuth ore yields a fine radiated regu- 
lus ; for which reafon it has been ranked among the antimo- 
nial ores, by thofe who have not taken proper care to melt a 
pure regulus or deftitute of fulphur from it; v,hile others, 
who make no di^erence between regules and pure metals, 
have ftiU more pofitively afferted it to be only an antimnnial 
©re. 
P 3 ford 
