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

Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver 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
183
taken, is made from iron that has been melted several times and thorough­ly cleansed of slag. Such iron comes from China, Pathicum, Noricum, Comensis and Spain. In one locality iron changes into steel because of the quality of the ore, as is the case today in Noricum, while in other localities it is changed because of the water in which the iron is quenched as at Como, Italy, and Bilbao and Turassio, Spain. Steel commands a higher price than other varieties of iron because the more often it is cleansed the more volume and weight it loses. Iron contains a defect they call ferrugo (scale) and rubigo (rust) produced at first through contact with moisture and more quickly through contact with human blood. This defect is pro­duced the quickest by sea water and iron is protected from it by coating it with many substances such as artificial lead oxide, cerussa, gypsum, bitumen, and liquid pitch. Unless it has been hardened by hammering it breaks more easily when heated to a red heat.
More things are made from iron than from all other metals. It is used in money; in rings worn by the Spartans; in chains worn by the Spanish women; in large bowls such as those at Delphi that were the work of Glaucus of Chios and placed there by Alyattes, King of Lydia; and in statues such as the one in Laconia, the work of Theodorus Samius. It is used to make nails, door hinges, bolts, keys, lattices, doors, folding doors, spades, staves, small forks, hooks, tridents, three-legged stools, anvils, hammers, wedges, chains, hoes, axes, scythes, baskets, shovels, planes, rakes, ploughshares, pitchforks, dishes, spatulas, platters, spoons, spits, knives, poniards, swords, hatchets, ferrules, weapons, long Macedonian pikes, and various weapons that are known by names derived from their origins, for example, pikes, javelins, murices, corselets, helmets, breast­plates, greaves, foot shackles, manacles. So much concerning iron and other simple metals that either occur pure in Nature or are purified by refining.
Now may I speak about the metal alloys that are found native in mines and are also smelted from ores. Nature mixes metals in various propor­tions. Sometimes a third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth part of one metal will occur in another, more often there is even a smaller quantity. Two, three, four, or five metals may be mixed together. Two metals may be mixed in many ways. Silver is alloyed with gold and gold with silver; gold or silver with copper; silver, copper, or iron with one of the plumbum metals; and silver, copper, or one of the plumbum metals with iron. An­other metal is sometimes mixed with tin or iron but any other metal ex­cept silver is rare in bismuth or lead. With the exception of two alloys, all of these lack names. One alloy is called electrum (electrum) and is a mixture of one part of silver in four of gold. The other is called stannum, an alloy with one part of lead in two parts of silver.
In former times they used electrum in making goblets because they would show the presence of poison. Pliny writes that when a poison is placed in one of these goblets a rainbow forms, similar to the rainbow in
Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver Page of 251 Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver
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