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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 IX artificially coloring of metals such as gold, silver, copper Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
186
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
gold with a hundred pounds of silver, merely a foolish practice that results in a loss of money. A similar practice is to mix a pound of silver with a hundred pounds of tin or copper. There are four alloys belonging to this genus. One contains tin alloyed with copper. Pliny describes this alloy. Ollaria is the latest name to be given it, the name being derived from a vase. Three or four pounds of tin are added to one hundred pounds of copper. A second alloy that does not differ greatly from this is called bombardaria, a name taken from a new although foreign word since this is a new thing. The name comes from the large ordnance (bombarda) made from it. Amazonae, basilisci, lusciniae, quartanea, dragons, ser­pents, and falconets, both large and small, belong to this class of ord­nance. To make this alloy one pound of tin is added to twenty pounds of copper.27 A third alloy is made by adding a half pound of bismuth to six­teen pounds of tin. This alloy rings and is usually hammered into platters, plates and dishes. The English commonly add more bismuth and make articles from it that closely resemble silver. The fourth alloy is made by adding one part of tin or bismuth to two parts of lead. In olden days this was used to join pipes and was called stannum tertiarium. There is another alloy containing equal amounts of two metals, usually tin and lead. In the time of Pliny they called this alloy stannum argentarium. Today it is sometimes used in making goblets, dishes, platters, circular vessels and similar objects. In general, these are the five ways in which they alloy two simple metals.
There are three alloys containing three metals, one new and two old. Pliny writes, concerning the old alloys, that one was copper, gold and silver but writes that it had become obsolete because of the casting of more valuable copper. He describes the other in these words, "Until now it has been called temperatura and has the form of very delicate copper because a tenth portion of lead and a twentieth portion of tin are added." This alloy can be colored with ease and is then called graecanica. The new alloy is made by mixing ten pounds of tin, five pounds of lead and two pounds of bismuth. Some add copper to the lead and bismuth in varying quantities. Tinsmiths hammer this alloy into different objects. I have found no men­tion of more than three simple metals being mixed together nor one or more mixed metals being alloyed with another mixed metal. However, a simple metal may be alloyed with a mixed metal, for example, tin with stannum tertiarium. Pliny writes, "the alloy made from equal parts of tertiarium and tin is looked upon with disfavor."
Enough about simple metals and their alloys. In the following book I shall discuss the coloring of these metals, the crude ores, and the arti­ficial metals.
Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver Page of 251 Book IX artificially coloring of metals such as gold, silver, copper
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