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Book V about lodestone, hematite, geodes, hematite, selenite, lapis secularum, asbestos, mica

Book V about lodestone, hematite, geodes, hematite, selenite, lapis secularum, asbestos, mica Page of 251 Book V about lodestone, hematite, geodes, hematite, selenite, lapis secularum, asbestos, mica Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
86
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
composed of lodestone is such that it holds iron, of the other composed of theamedes, that it repels iron.1 Can we then believe that if we had the nails pulled from our shoes on one mountain we could go to the other and have them put back? Even today stones are found composed in part of lodestone, in part of theamedes. These two minerals do not differ in color although they have different properties. Albertus Magnus writes that during his lifetime he found such a mineral, a portion of which would at­tract iron, another portion repel it. Since I have no intent of writing about mythical stones I will not discuss those said to be attracted by iron nor those that are supposed to attract human flesh. I will omit pantarbe which Philostratus describes as attracting other stones as well as amphitane which Pliny writes is also known as chrysocolla. The latter is said to have an appearance similar to gold and to be found in a cubic form in a part of India where the ants dig up gold. It is affirmed to have the same properties as lodestone except that it also attracts gold.2
Related stones are often found in iron mines, especially hematite (haematites) and schistos.3 These are produced from the same material and differ only in form and certain other properties. Hematite is so-called either because it is the color of blood, as Galen rightly believes, following Theophrastus; because it stops the flow of blood; or because, having been ground on a wet whetstone, it imitates a bloody juice.4 Schistos is so-named not because it has been split nor because it can always be split with ease for it cannot, but, because it is cleavable in a certain manner. Due to the mutual arrangement of its parts it has formed like wood in straight lines and is similar to sal ammoniac.
These stones are found in many parts of Germany, in Saxony, in the Hildesheim forest on the farther side of Mt. Maurice in a wide and oblique vein; four miles from Goslar on the road to a mountain the miners call Silver Birch but which we will call Goslar. Schistos is found in several places in the Harz forest, especially near Harzgerode. It occurs in the Hass Berg which is in the district of the Chatti in the mountains of Gladenbach, also in Misena in the mine of the Hermunduri called Goldekrona, i.e., Gold Crown. It is abundant about five miles from the town of Marien-burg. Both minerals occur in the iron mines of Bohemia near the town of Lessa. They are also found in the silver mines of Joachimsthal, although always in small amounts, and in the iron mines of Noricum south of the Danube which are two miles from Amberg on the road to the west toward
1  This myth probably developed from the fact that a piece of lodestone shows polarity.
2 This probably refers to pyrite. Although it will not attract gold it is often aurifer­ous, the possible basis of the myth.
3 Schistos is a synonym for goethite, as used by Agricola, but due to incomplete knowledge of the character of the various hydrous iron oxides he has included some limonite as well as hematite and other minerals in this group.
4 The name comes from the Greek αίματίτης, blood-like.
Book V about lodestone, hematite, geodes, hematite, selenite, lapis secularum, asbestos, mica Page of 251 Book V about lodestone, hematite, geodes, hematite, selenite, lapis secularum, asbestos, mica
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