Book III about halite and nitrium, alum and acrid juices and related minerals, sulphur, bitumen, realgar, and orpiment; the fourth, chrysocolla, aerugo, caeruleum, ferrugo

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	48	DE NATURA FOSSILIUM

	ally at Goslar where it occurs as dark gray, dull, subrounded masses and is called atramentum stone. In the center of these masses pale-colored pyrite is found almost dissolved. Usually the center of pyrite is about the size of a walnut. Either sory or melanteria envelope these cores of pyrite and spreading through these minerals are pale green stringers of atramentum that have the appearance of hairs running out from and at the same time connecting to the minerals.¹⁶ Atramentum sutorium is produced both in nature and artificially from water and sory or melanteria or even chalci-tis. The natural mineral forms from some kind of humor and has congealed like ice either in viens, fractures or joints of rocks or it has come out from the rock drop by drop and, moving down along channels, has congealed in the form of icicles and hangs from the back of openings or finally it may drop from the back of openings and congeal on the floor. Irrespective of whether it hangs from the back or occurs on the floor the Greeks call it σταλακτικός because it has congealed by dropping. There are two artificial varieties, one the Greeks call, correctly, πηκτός, the Latins, con-cretus. When this variety is either carried from underground workings and poured into rectangular reservoirs or conducted thence along channels it will congeal due to the cold or the heat of the sun. The other variety the Greeks call έφθός, the Latins, coctum or "cooked." The water containing the atramentum is placed in rectangular basins and then boiled away, as I shall explain elsewhere. These minerals and related varieties have been mined in Spain and many places in Germany. They are found at Goslar, a noted locality; in the Harz forest near the fortified city of Blancheburg six miles from Hal-berstadt, Saxony; at Zuenicius, Breitenbrunn, in certain underground workings of Annaberg, and above Radeberg, Misena; in Bohemia; at Cuperberg in the Salyes district; and some about four miles from the mine we call Zuckmantel because many travellers are there robbed of their coats by highwaymen. Other localities are the part of Hungary once called Dacia; Smolensk in Cepusk; near caverns at Volterra, Italy; at Solis in Cyprus; and in Egypt and Africa. There are five species of this mineral, melanteria, sory, misy, chalcitis and atramentum sutorium. Some species ¹⁶ Bermanus, page 464. Naevius, "... The Veneti prefer the atramentum sutorium from Cyprus to all others and I have purchased a piece that has been partially altered to misy. I have this specimen in my house at present and will send it to you Bermannus at the first opportunity. If this obvious alteration occurs in the mines of Cyprus you can easily find it in our copper mines." Bermannus. "You will do me a great favor." Naevius. "I am not denying that Galen wrote about atramentum sutorium. I have many pieces of this remedy which I brought back from Cyprus and after almost twenty years the outer portions have changed to chalcitis while the interior is atramentum sutorium. To this day I have always taken off the outer portion which has altered and observed at the end of each year how this transformation has proceeded, comparing it with the alteration of chalcitis to misy."

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