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Book I Minerals color, taste, odor , physical properties of gemstones and minerals such as emeralds, diamonds, rubies, sapphires
Page
of 251
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BOOK I
19
melt in a fire. The molten metal, on cooling, again becomes hard and returns to its original form. In this way it differs from a stone that melts in a fire. The molten stone becomes hard when cool but does not return to its original form and appearance. There are reported to be six species of metals, namely, gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, and lead. Actually there are more. Mercury is a metal although we differ on this point with the chemists.
Plumbum cinereum
(gray lead) which we call
bisemutum
was unknown to the older Greek writers. On the other hand Ammonius writes correctly many metals are unknown to us, as well as many plants and animals. Stibnite, having been smelted and refined in a crucible is seen to belong more properly to the genus of lead minerals, tin, lead, and bismuth, than writers think. Moreover, having been refined in this manner and added to tin in the proper proportions, it produces the alloy
libraria. Libraria
is used by printers to make type.
5
Actually each metal has its own characteristic nature which it retains when parted and separated from those metals with which it may have been mixed. Thus, neither
electrum
nor
stannum
is in itself a metal but a mixture of two metals.
Electrum
is a mixture of gold and silver;
stannum,
lead and silver. If the silver is parted from the gold, gold remains, not
electrum,
if parted from the lead, lead remains, not
stannum.
We cannot say whether brass occurs as a native mineral or not. The only brass known to us is the artificial product made from copper having been dyed with the color of
cadmia fossilis.
If any has been mined it has had the characteristic appearances of a metal.
Aes nigrum
and
candidum
are seen to differ from the
rubrum
species. Thus a metal is either solid or liquid. Mercury is the only liquid metal.
Leaving the genera of simple minerals I shall now take up the mixed minerals. I shall not discuss all genera but only those that Nature has created from inanimate substances. In the class of mixed minerals I have placed those which have formed from two or three simple substances which are themselves mineral bodies. These are true minerals but with their constituents so mixed and combined in proper proportions that the smallest particle of the mixed body contains everything found in the body as a whole. They are so combined that if the mixed mineral contains three simple constituents or bodies, one can be separated from another by the force of fire, or a third from the other two, or two from the third. The two or three constituents are commonly combined in the new mineral in such a manner that the original character of none is evident. A composite mineral, even though it contains these same simple constituents, differs from a mixed mineral. The simple constituents almost always retain their form and one can be separated from another, not only by fire but also by water and sometimes even by the hand of man. Since these two things differ so greatly that one may be distinguished from the other I wish to distinguish them by those two names. I realize that Galen called an earth which con-
' Type metal is usually an alloy of antimony and lead rather than tin.
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Agricola. Textbook of Mineralogy.
Front page, forword and index
To the illustrious duke of saxony and thuringia and misena prince of Maurice
Book I Minerals color, taste, odor , physical properties of gemstones and minerals such as emeralds, diamonds, rubies, sapphires
Book II About different applications of earths (painting, medical) and their occurrences
Book III about halite and nitrium, alum and acrid juices and related minerals, sulphur, bitumen, realgar, and orpiment; the fourth, chrysocolla, aerugo, caeruleum, ferrugo
Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone
Book V about lodestone, hematite, geodes, hematite, selenite, lapis secularum, asbestos, mica
Book VI gems: diamond, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, chrysoberyl, carbuncle, jaspis
Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications
Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver
Book IX artificially coloring of metals such as gold, silver, copper
Book X lapis sabinicus, lapis selentinus, lapis liparaeus and other mixtures of stone, metal and earth
Latin Mineral Index
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