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Book X lapis sabinicus, lapis selentinus, lapis liparaeus and other mixtures of stone, metal and earth

Book X lapis sabinicus, lapis selentinus, lapis liparaeus and other mixtures of stone, metal and earth Page of 251 Book X lapis sabinicus, lapis selentinus, lapis liparaeus and other mixtures of stone, metal and earth Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
BOOK X
215
mineral is carried to the lid where it forms a black, bluish black, or gray compound which the chemists call sublimate of cadmia. This is even more corrosive than the natural mineral.26 There is a natural relationship be­tween this cadmia and spodos and pompholyx as was noted by Serapio, the Moor. The Greeks did not know it. Each is produced when cadmia, pyrite, galena, or similar metallic substances are burnt by subterranean fires or by fires set by miners in underground workings or pits in order to break the hard rocks. Black, bluish black, and gray spodos are obtained from cadmia; white pompholyx and gray spodos from pyrite; and yellow and gray spodos from galena. The white pompholyx obtained from a copper bearing stone will turn green eventually. Black sooty spodos is found at Aldenberg, Misena. White fluffy pompholyx occurs in the joints of the rocks of almost all quarries at Hildesheim except those in sandy rocks and in the summer it is often seen floating in the air.27 The gray, dark blue and yellow varieties are found in certain silver mines where the min­ers break the rock by fire setting. All are tenuous and therefore light while the white pompholyx (halotrichite) is the lightest of all. All are strong desiccants. That which is produced from cadmia is exceedingly corrosive although it is not especially biting since it is so tenuous.28 If the Aldenberg mineral falls on a sore or any place where the skin is broken a workman will not feel it particularly although it will eat away the skin until the bone is laid bare. This is enough concerning the four genera of mixed substances that contain a metal and also concerning spodos and pompholyx found in mines.
I shall now take up the sixth genus, which as I have said, contains a stone, a metal and a congealed juice. Substances placed in this genus are distinguished by the juice they contain. The mixture of a stone and a metal contains either sulphur, bitumen, alum, atramentum sutorium, salt, soda, or some other congealed juice. The cupriferous, cleavable rock found in Hesse near Werre Suntel belongs to the first. When burnt it gives off sulphurous moisture. Sulphur and then silver are smelted from a similar blackish rock from Kromen, Bohemia. Sulphur is obtained from pyrite in the Harz forest near Harzgerode and near the Elbe river at Brambach. Spinus found in the mines of Thrace belongs to the second species. It is very heavy, as Theophrastus says, and can be recognized readily when held in the hand. Stones that contain a metal are heavy while those that contain bitumen are light and one containing a mixture of the two has an intermediate weight. Having been broken up and heaped
meaning goblin or some malignant force. The cobalt minerals had the appearance of silver and yet the alchemists and smelters could extract no metal from them, obtaining instead corrosive and poisonous fumes.
26 This impure sublimate consisting in part of poisonous arsenious oxide was known as Huttenrauch. The natural mineral is arsenolite, arsenic oxide.
27 This probably refers to alums and other closely related sulphate minerals.
28 This may refer to goslarite, the hydrous sulphate of zinc.
Book X lapis sabinicus, lapis selentinus, lapis liparaeus and other mixtures of stone, metal and earth Page of 251 Book X lapis sabinicus, lapis selentinus, lapis liparaeus and other mixtures of stone, metal and earth
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