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Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver

Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications Page of 251 Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
BOOK VIII
A metal, as I have said, is a natural mineral body that may be liquid, as is quicksilver, or hard although it may melt in a fire as does gold, silver copper, and lead, or become soft as does iron. Metals are found in veins, either pure or mixed with earth and stone. I shall describe the pure metal first and then take up the veins from which each is recovered, i.e., the mixed and compound minerals of that genus. The older writers have held that only gold and true quicksilver are found in veins. Pliny, who has compiled the writings of the Greeks and Latins in his Natural History, denies that silver is ever found pure. He writes that it never occurs natur­ally in its true form and never has the sparkling brilliancy of gold. How­ever, all the mines of Germany cry out with one voice against this con­clusion. Pure silver, copper, iron and bismuth are dug from the earth. The other two genera of "lead" minerals1 are found almost pure. However, the true, virgin metal created originally within the earth is either simple, such as quicksilver, always, tin and iron, almost always, and silver, commonly, or mixed with another metal, usually gold, copper, lead or bismuth. The oldest writers, Diemachus, Megasthenes, Aristeas, Herod­otus and many others, have said that gold is found pure. Whenever I think about their writings the present methods of recovering gold are brought to my mind and I am always led to the conclusion that more gold has been recovered in the metallic form during the ages than has been smelted from earths and stones with which it is commonly mixed. In support of this conclusion I might mention the many famous streams that contain minute pieces of metallic gold, the Ganges of India, Pactolus of Lydia, Hebrus of Thrace, Tagos of Spain, Padus of Italy, and the Elbe of Germany. Additional support is found in all the fabulous stories of the old writers. They tell of the griffins who stole gold, of ants in India that dug up gold, of the golden apples of the Hesperides, of the Golden Fleece, a story beloved by poets. Final support is found in the abundance of small pieces of gold found in Spain associated with larger masses, some of the latter weighing up to ten pounds. According to Pliny the former are called balux, the latter palaca. An unknown Greek writer is the authority for the statement that masses of gold, probably many of them, had been found in Paeonia weighing one hundred drachma. He mentions two larger masses, one weighing three hundred drachma, another five hundred. Within our own time equally large masses have been brought to Spain from neighbor­ing islands. In the mines of the Lygii, famous because the riffle cloths were once stolen by thieves, they have found one mass of gold weighing more than a pound and several smaller pieces.
1 In the Latin nomenclature there are three "lead" minerals, plumbum nigrum, lead; plumbum cinereum, bismuth; plumbum candidum, album, or argentarium, tin.
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Book VII marbles, gems in rings and other applications Page of 251 Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver
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