216 ANTIMONY. 
was not regularly worked till 1763. In the first five 
years about a hundred tons' weight of antimony were 
obtained from it. This at 847. per ton, produced the 
sum of 8400^. The undertaking was afterwards relin- 
quished, but^as the price of antimony is now at least 
thrice what it then was, it is supposed that this work, 
if resumed, might prove an advantageous speculation. 
The vein of ore is only from eight inches to a foot and 
a half in thickness. 
Antimony was known to the ancients. The earliest 
account we have of it is in the Sacred Writings. The 
passage in the Second Book of Kings,* which states 
that, on the approach of Jehu to the city of Jezreel, 
" Jezebel painted her face/' implies, in the original, 
that she stained her eyes and eyebrows with antimony, 
for the purpose of making them look black and large, 
a custom which, at that period, was prevalent in several 
of the Eastern countries. Antimony was likewise con- 
sidered by the ancients a remedy against inflammations 
of the eyes. 
This metal is the basis of many of the officinal pre- 
parations which are now in use ; and it was the basis 
of many others which were formerly used, but are now 
discontinued. No mineral substance has so much at- 
tracted the attention, or so much divided the opinion 
of physicians, as antimony. One party extolled it as 
an infallible specific for almost every disease; whilst 
another described it as a virulent poison, which ought to 
be expunged from the list of medicines. It was on this 
metal that the alchemists of the middle ages principally 
founded their hope of discovering the philosopher's 
stone ; and, by a kind of good fortune, of which we 
can cite but few examples, it has happened that, in 
pursuing a chimera, they hit upon a succession of im- 
portant realities. To the unremitted perseverance with 
which they tormented this metal, if we may so express 
it, the art of healing has been most essentially in- 
debted. 
* Ch. ix. v. 0. See also Ezek, c\ xxiii. v. 40. 
