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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 III about halite and nitrium, alum and acrid juices and related minerals, sulphur, bitumen, realgar, and orpiment; the fourth, chrysocolla, aerugo, caeruleum, ferrugo Page of 251 Book III about halite and nitrium, alum and acrid juices and related minerals, sulphur, bitumen, realgar, and orpiment; the fourth, chrysocolla, aerugo, caeruleum, ferrugo Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
68
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
the mouth of it is sealed. The jar is placed in a furnace for five hours and the mineral will then have the color of realgar. Realgar and orpiment are commonly found in the same veins as Dioscorides has correctly observed, for example, at Hellespont, Mysia; in Pontus on the Hypanis river; in Asia Minor along the boundary between Magnesia and Ephesus; in Cappadocia; in Pimolisenus, a district of Paphlagonia; in Carmania; and on St. John's Island in the sea called Red. Realgar is used by painters, by potters when they wish to draw red lines around their vessels and by physicians since it has the property of burning. Taken internally with liquids or resins it cures the fever of many diseases and mixed with honey it cures purulent expectorations. Mixed with resin it cures asthma and chronic cough if the fumes from the burning mixture are drawn in through the mouth and nose. Mixed with honey it stops hoarseness if the mixture is licked or swallowed.32
I shall now take up juices, among which sulphur and bitumen are the more unctuous. There are two kinds of sulphur (sulfur), one being the native mineral the Latins call vivum and the Greeks airvpos, that is, not having been subjected to fire as correctly interpreted by Celsus. The second variety is the artificial mineral the Greeks call irtimpwukvos, that is, ha\dng been subjected to fire. Native sulphur is obtained in large quanti­ties from the burning mountain of Hekla, Iceland, and is sold by merchants for a low price. A small quantity is found in the Bohemian Bilderz silver mine. A large amount is mined in Italy, particularly at Volterra, in the Cesenatico mountains, at Narni, on the Phlegraean Plain between Pozzuolo and Naples, on the sulphur bearing plain which the Greeks call ήφαίστος ayopav and in the Leucogaean hills. It is found on Lipari and other Aeolian Islands and on Melos. There is a sulphur mine in Judea near the town of Machaeruntis.
Artificial sulphur is made in a variety of ways. It can be refined from water as in Lower Pannonia near Buda. It can be obtained from earth that is dug up and then heated in vessels as at many places in Italy, for example, Volterra, Cesena and Pozzuolo. It may be distilled from pyrite which is heated in earthen jars as at Brambach and Harzgerode, Saxony, each being in the principality of the Prince of Anhalt, and at Cromena, Bohemia. It is obtained in a similar manner from pyrite-bearing stone that forms in layers along the Werra river of the Suntel Gebirge, Hesse.
There is a second artificial variety that is made by heating sulphur and iron scale in earthenware jugs. This variety is commonly called caballinus since it is used to cure scabs on horses. It is also obtained from a sulphur mud found in Pannonia.
82 Arsenic is used today as a tonic, in the treatment of malaria fever and asthma. Realgar readily alters to orpiment and both minerals will alter to the white oxide, arsenolite. In the Interpretatio Agricola gives the two German names reusehgeel and rosgeel in synonyms. He mentions that the so-called sandaraca found in mines is not true realgar but red ochre. He identifies the red artificial mineral as the red lead oxide minimum.
Book III about halite and nitrium, alum and acrid juices and related minerals, sulphur, bitumen, realgar, and orpiment; the fourth, chrysocolla, aerugo, caeruleum, ferrugo Page of 251 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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