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ZINC

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Zinc is one of those metals which were not known to the Greeks82, Romans, or Arabians. This we have reason to conjecture, because it has not been distinguished by a chemical character like the rest; but it is fully proved, by our not finding in the works of the ancients any information that appears even to allude to it. I know but of one instance where it is supposed to have been found among remains of antiquity. Grignon pretends that something like it was discovered in the ruins of the ancient Roman city in Champagne83. Such an unexpected discovery deserved to have been investigated with the utmost minuteness; but it seems to have been examined only in a very superficial manner; and as that was the case, it is impossible to guess what kind of a metal or metallic mixture this author considered as zinc.

It is not surprising that this metal should have remained so long unknown, for it has never yet been found in the metallic state. Its ores are often and in a great degree mixed with foreign ingredients; and when they are melted, it sublimes in a metallic form, and is found adhering above to the cool sides of the furnace; but a particular apparatus is necessary, else the reduced metal partly evaporates, and is partly oxidized, by which means it appears like an earth, and exhibits to the eye no traces of metal.

That mixture of zinc and copper called at present brass, tomback, pinchbeck, princes-metal, &c., and which was first discovered by ores, abundant in zinc, yielding when melted not pure copper, but brass, was certainly known to the ancients. Mines that contained ores, from which this gold-coloured metal was produced, were held in the highest estimation; when exhausted, the loss of them was regretted; and it was supposed that the metal would never be again found. In the course of time it was remarked, no one knows by what accident, that an ore, which must have been calamine, when added to copper while melting, gave it a yellow colour. This ore was therefore used, though it was not known what metal it contained, in the same manner as oxide of cobalt was employed in colouring glass before mineralogists were acquainted with that metal itself. Aristotle and Strabo speak of an earth of that kind, the use of which in making brass has been retained through every century. Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, in the fourth century; Primasius, bishop of Adrumetum in Africa, in the sixth; and Isidore, bishop of Seville, in the seventh, mention an addition by which copper acquired a gold colour, and which undoubtedly must have been calamine. When in course of time more calamine was discovered, the ancient method of procuring brass from copper-ore that contained zinc was abandoned; and it was found more convenient first to extract from it pure copper, and then to convert it into brass by the addition of calamine.

Those desirous of inquiring further into the knowledge which the ancients had of this metal must examine the meaning of the word cadmia, which seems to have had various significations. This task I have ventured to undertake; and though I cannot clear up everything that occurs respecting it, I shall lay before my readers what information I have been able to obtain on the subject, because perhaps it may amount to somewhat more than is to be found in the works of old commentators. Cadmia signified, then, in the first place, a mineral abounding in zinc, as well as any ore combined with it, and also that zinc-earth which we call calamine. Those who should understand under it only the latter, would not be able to explain the greater part of the passages in the ancients where it is mentioned. It is probable that ore containing zinc acquired this name, because it first produced brass84. When it was afterwards remarked that calamine gave to copper a yellow colour, the same name was conferred on it also. It appears, however, that it was seldom found by the ancients85; and we must consider cadmia in general as signifying ore that contained zinc. Gold-coloured copper or brass was long preferred to pure or common copper, and thought to be more beautiful the nearer it approached to the best aurichalcum. Brass therefore was supposed to be a more valuable kind of copper; and on this account Pliny says that cadmia was necessary for procuring copper, that is brass. Copper, as well as brass, was for a great length of time called æs, and it was not till a late period that mineralogists, in order to distinguish them, gave the name of cuprum to the former86. Pliny says that it was good when a large quantity of cadmia had been added to it, because it not only rendered the colour more beautiful, but increased the weight. In the like manner a quintal of copper in Hungary produces a hundred and fifty pounds of brass. The same author remarks also that the cadmia (fossilis) was not used in medicine: this however is to be understood only of the raw ore, for some physicians prepared oxide of zinc from ore that contained zinc, as he afterwards tells us; and Galen extols the calamine found in Cyprus on account of its superior effects, because, perhaps, the oxide could be obtained from it much purer.

In the second place, cadmia, among the ancients, was what we call (ofenbruch) furnace-calamine, or what in melting ore that contains zinc, or in making brass, falls to the bottom of the furnace, and which consists of more or less calcined zinc. As this furnace-calamine assumes various appearances, according to the manner of melting, and according to many other circumstances that in part cannot be defined, and as the ancients comprehend all its varieties under the general name of cadmia, and give to each variety, according to its form, consistence and colour, a particular name also, a confusion of names has hence arisen which cannot now be cleared up, especially as it is not thought worth while to distinguish all its incidental variations. Our physicians esteem only the pure oxide of zinc; and as they know how to obtain it, they are not under the necessity of using impure furnace-calamine. In our melting-houses it is employed, without much nicety in the choice, for making zinc or brass87.

What here appears to me most singular is, that the ancients should have given the same names to furnace-calamine as they gave to ores that contained zinc. The affinity of these substances they could conjecture only from their effects, or perhaps they were induced to do so from observing that furnace-calamine was not produced but when the different kinds of cadmia, as they were called, were melted; that is, when yellow and not red copper was obtained. Ofenbruch got the name of furnace-calamine at Rammelsberg, when it was observed that it could be employed instead of native calamine for making brass88. Were the ancients then in any measure acquainted with this use of it? Galen and Dioscorides speak only of its use in medicine, and say nothing of its being employed in the preparation of brass. The Arabian writers, particularly the translators of the Greek physicians, speak in a much clearer manner of the preparation of brass; but the appellations which they employ are so indeterminate in their signification, that an answer to the above question cannot be deduced from them. Climia, which some pronounce calimia and from which the modern Greeks made kelimia, and the Latins lapis calaminaris, seems to have entirely the same meaning as cadmia. Tutia, which occurs first in the eleventh century, in Avicenna, and which the Greeks write toutia, or perhaps more properly thouthia, signifies sometimes pompholyx; but in common it seems to express also minerals that contain zinc, and likewise furnace-calamine89. Could it be proved that the tutia of the Arabs and later Greeks was furnace-calamine, or the tutia of our druggists, the oldest account with which I am acquainted of furnace-calamine, employed in making brass, would occur in Zosimus, who, according to every appearance, lived in the fifth century90. This author tells us, that in order to make brass, Cyprus copper must be melted, and pounded tutia must be strewed over it. Salmasius suspects that Zosimus here means only calamine: but however this may be, his receipt has been retained till the present time in books on the arts; for these recommend not calamine, but tutia91.

We can with more certainty affirm that this use of furnace-calamine, in making brass, was known to Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century; for he says, first, that yellow copper was made by the addition of calamine, which he calls lapis calaminaris. He tells us afterwards, that Hermes taught how to give a gold colour to copper by throwing pounded tutia into the melted metal. Tutia, says he, which is used in the transmutation of metals, is not a native mineral, but an artificial mixture, produced in the furnace when copper-ore is melted; and he advises glass-gall to be strewed over the ore, otherwise calamine and tutia will lose their force in the fire92. It would appear that the last-mentioned name, in the thirteenth century, signified only furnace-calamine, and that its use for making brass was at that period known.

For many centuries, however, the ofenbruch (furnace-calamine), with which, as we are told, the furnaces at Rammelsberg overflowed, was thrown aside as useless, till at length, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Erasmus Ebener first showed that it might be used instead of native calamine for making brass. This Ebener, descended from the noble family of that name at Nuremberg, was a man of great learning, and an able statesman. He was employed by his native city, and by foreign princes, on occasions of the highest importance. In 1569 he was privy-counsellor to Julius duke of Brunswick, and died in 1577, at Helmstadt, where he was buried. I regret much that I can give no further account of this important discovery; the time even when it was made is not known with certainty. Lœhneyss says that it was sixty years before the period when he wrote. But at what period did he write? The oldest edition, with which I am acquainted, of his treatise on mines, is of the year 1617, so that this discovery would fall about the year 155793. Calvör caused to be printed an old account of the Rammelsberg mines, which was said to have been published in 1565. According to that work, Ebener made the above-mentioned observation at Nuremberg, about seventeen years before, that is, about the year 1548. Schluter assigns as the period about 1550, and Honemann about 1559. We may therefore very safely place it in the middle of the sixteenth century, and probably the discovery happened in 1553, at which time Ebener was sent to duke Henry, with whom he continued a long time, as we are expressly told by Doppelmayer. This use of calamine refuse induced the managers of the profitable brass-works in the Harz forest to pick up carefully that which before had been thrown aside. Duke Julius, who endeavoured to improve every branch of manufacture, and particularly what related to metallurgy, and who, agreeably to the then prevailing mode of princes, suffered himself to be duped with the hopes of making gold, improved the brass-works at Buntheim, below Harzburg, and by these means brought a great revenue to the electoral treasury.

Another production of zinc, artificial white vitriol, was also long prepared, used and employed in commerce before it was known that it was procured from this metal. That it was not known before the middle of the sixteenth century, and that it was first made at Rammelsberg, may with confidence be affirmed. Schluter ascribes the invention of it to duke Julius, and places it in the year 1570: but it must be somewhat older than the above-quoted account of Rammelsberg; for the author, who wrote about 156594, relates, that in his time one citizen only, whom he calls Henni Balder, boiled white vitriol; and it appears that this person kept the process a secret. That the invention was not then new, is evident from his adding, that what its effects might be in medicine had not been examined; but that its use in making eye-water had been known almost as early as the time when it was discovered. This agrees with another account, according to which the method of boiling white vitriol was found out at the time when Christopher Sander, whose service to the Harz is well-known, was tithe-gatherer. Honemann says that Sander was tithe-gatherer at the mines of the Upper Harz before the year 1564, but that in this year he was principal tithe-gatherer and director of the mines and melting-houses at Goslar. Sander himself, in a paper dated August 3, 1575, seems to ascribe the invention of white vitriol to duke Julius95.

At first this salt was called Erzalaun, a name occasioned by its likeness to alum, but afterwards it was more frequently known by those of Gallitzenstein, Golitzenstein, and Calitzenstein. The latter names however appear to be older than white vitriol itself; as we find that green vitriol, even before the year 1565, was called green Gallitzenstein. May not the word be derived from gallæ; because it is probable that vitriol and galls were for a long time the principal articles used for making ink and in dyeing? I am of opinion that the white vitriol, which is produced in the mines of Rammelsberg in the form of icicles, gave rise to the discovery and manufacture of this salt. The former, so early as the year 1565, was called white native vitriol, or white Gogkelgut, and was packed up in casks, and in that manner transported for sale96. I shall not here enter into the old conjectures respecting the origin and component parts of this vitriol; but it deserves to be remarked, that Henkel and Neumann97 observed in it a mixture of zinc, by which Brandt, a member of the Swedish council of mines, was led to prove, that, when pure, it consists of vitriolic acid and oxide of zinc; and this was afterwards confirmed by Hellot98.

I come now, in the last place, to the history of this metal, which, when furnace-calamine was used, could not remain long unobserved, as it is sometimes found amongst it uncalcined in metallic drops. It is worthy of remark, that Albertus Magnus, who first described the use of furnace-calamine in making brass, is the oldest author in whose works mention is made of zinc. He calls it marchasita aurea. This was properly a stone, the metallic particles of which were so entirely sublimated by fire, that nothing but useless ashes remained behind. It contained fixed quicksilver, communicated a colour to metals, on which account it was well known to the alchemists, burned in the fire, and was at length entirely consumed. It was found in various parts, but that at Goslar was the best, because the copper it contained seemed to have in it a mixture of gold. To give this copper however a still greater resemblance to gold, some tin was added to it, by which means it became more brittle. This marchasita also rendered copper white as silver. Thus far Albertus. It obtained without doubt the name of marchasita aurea, because zinc communicates a yellow colour to copper; and for the same reason the Greeks and the Arabians called cadmia golden or aurea. But how could Albertus say that marchasite made copper white? Did he commit a mistake, and mean tin? To me this appears not probable, as at one time he seems to call it argentea. I imagine that he knew that copper, when mixed with as much zinc as possible, that is, according to Scheffer, eighty-nine pounds to a hundred, became white; and it appears that by this he wished to establish its affinity with quicksilver.

The next author who gives an intelligible account of this metal is Theophrastus Paracelsus, who died in 1541. I do not however imagine that it was forgotten in this long interval, at least by those who were called alchemists. I am rather of opinion, that on account of the great hopes which it gave them by the colouring of copper, they described it purposely in an obscure manner, and concealed it under other names, so that it was not discovered in their works. There are few who would have patience to wade through these, and the few who could do so, turn their attention to objects of greater importance than those which occupy mine. Gold and silver excepted, there is no metal which has had formerly so many and so wonderful names as zinc99. For this reason, chemists long believed that zinc was not a distinct metal, but only a variety of tin or bismuth; and with these perhaps it may hence have been often confounded.

The name zinc occurs first in Paracelsus. He expressly calls it a distinct metal, the nature of which was not sufficiently known; which could be cast, but was not malleable, and which was produced only in Carinthia. Was he then unacquainted with the zinc of Goslar, which was known at an earlier period to Albertus Magnus100? George Agricola, who wrote about the year 1550, speaks however of the Goslar zinc, but he calls it liquor candidus, and in German conterfey101. Mathesius, who published his sermons in 1562, says, “at Freyberg there is red and white zinc.” Perhaps he did not mean the metal, but minerals that contained zinc. George Fabricius, who died in 1571, conjectures that stibium is what the miners call cincum, which can be melted, but not hammered.

It is seen by these imperfect accounts that this metal must have been scarce, even in the middle of the sixteenth century, and that it was not in the collection of Agricola, which was considerable for that period. Libavius, who died in 1616, mentions it several times, but he regrets, in one of his letters, that he had not been able to procure any of it102. Was this owing to the prohibition of duke Julius, by which it was forbidden to be sold? This prohibition is quoted by Pott from Jungii Mineralogia, with which I am unacquainted; but as Pott has already, by his unintelligible quotations, made me spend many hours to no purpose, I shall not waste more in searching for it. The prohibition alluded to is mentioned neither by Rehtmeier nor by any other author. The foolish taste for alchemy, which prevailed then at the duke’s court, makes it not altogether improbable that one was issued103; and if that was really the case, it was occasioned not so much by any dread of this metal being misused, as Pott thinks, but by the high hopes which were entertained of its utility in making gold. The first accurate and certain account of the method of procuring zinc at Goslar, is, as far as I know, given by Lœhneyss, in 1617, though he considers it to be the same as bismuth104. Joh. Schrœder of Westphalia, who died in 1664, calls it marcasita pallida.

The first person who purposely procured this metal from calamine, by the addition of some inflammable substance, was undoubtedly Henkel, who gave an account of his success in the year 1741, though he concealed the whole process105. After him, Dr. Isaac Lawson, a Scotsman, seems to have made experiments which proved the possibility of obtaining zinc in this manner on a large scale; and in 1737 Henkel heard that it was then manufactured in England with great advantage. Of this Lawson I know nothing more than what is related by Dr. Watson106. Anthony von Swab, member of the Swedish council of mines, procured this metal afterwards from calamine by distillation, in 1742; as did Marggraf in 1746, who appears however not to have been acquainted with the Swedish experiment. In the year 1743, one Champion established zinc works at Bristol, which were continued by his successor James Emerson, who established works of the like kind at Henham, in the neighbourhood. The manner in which the metal was procured, has been described by Dr. Watson in his Chemical Essays.

The greater part of this metal, used in Europe, was undoubtedly brought from the East Indies. The Commercial Company in the Netherlands, between the years 1775 and 1779, caused to be sold, on their account, above 943,081 pounds of it107. In the year 1780, the chamber of Rotterdam alone sold 28,000 pounds; and I find, by printed catalogues, that the other chambers, at that period, had not any of it in their possession. If the account given by Raynal be true, the Dutch East India Company purchased annually, at Palimbang, a million and a half of pounds108. In 1781, the Danish Company at Copenhagen purchased 153,953 pounds of tutenage, which had been carried thither in two vessels, at the rate of from four and one-eighth to four and a quarter schillings Lubec per pound. It is probable that the English and Swedes import this article also. It would be of some consequence if one could learn in what part of India, when, and in what manner this metal was first procured, and in what year it was first carried thence to Europe. According to the scanty information which we have on the subject, it comes from China, Bengal, Malacca109, and the Malabar coast, from which copper and tin are also imported. In the oldest bills of lading of ships belonging to the Netherlands I find no mention of zinc; but it is possible that it may be comprehended under the name of Indian tin; for so it was at first called. Savot, who died about the year 1640, relates, on the authority of a contemporary writer110, that some years before the Dutch had taken from the Portuguese a ship laden with this metal, which was sold under the name of speautre. It is probable therefore that it was brought to Europe so early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. Indian tin is mentioned by Boyle.

It is probable that this metal was discovered in India before anything of the European zinc had been known in that country; but we are still less acquainted with the cause of the discovery than with the method of procuring the metal. We are told that an Englishman, who, in the above century, went to India, in order to discover the process used there, returned with an account that it was obtained by distillation ver descensum.

Respecting the origin of the different names of this metal, I can offer very little. Conterfey signified formerly every kind of metal made in imitation of gold111. Frisch says it was called zink, from which was formed first zinetum, and afterwards zincum, because the furnace-calamine assumes the figure of (zinken or zacken) nails or spikes; but it is to be remarked that these names do not occur before the discovery of this metal, though ofenbruch was known long before. Fulda speaks of the Anglo-Saxon sin, zink, which he translates obryzum. Spiauter, speauter, and spialter, from which Boyle made speltrum, and also tutaneg or tuttanego, came to us from India with the commodity. Under the last-mentioned name is sometimes comprehended a mixture of tin and bismuth. Calaem is also an Indian appellation given to this metal, and has a considerable likeness to calamine; but I am of opinion with Salmasius that the latter is not derived from the former, as lapis calaminaris occurs in the thirteenth century, and calaem was first brought to us by the Portuguese from India.

[Most of the zinc works in this country are situated in the neighbourhood of Birmingham and Bristol; a few furnaces also exist in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, among the coal-pits surrounding that town; there is also one at Maestag in Glamorganshire. The ores worked at Bristol and Birmingham are principally obtained from the Mendip-hills and Flintshire; those at Sheffield from Alston Moor. The greater part however of the zinc used in this country is imported in ingots and plates from Silesia, by way of Hamburg, Antwerp, Dantzic, &c. We receive annually from 100,000 to 170,000 cwts. from Germany; of this quantity, about 80,000 cwt. are entered for home consumption, and the rest is exported for India.

From its moderate price and the ease with which it can be worked, zinc is now extensively used for making water-cisterns, baths, pipes, covering of roofs, and a great many architectural purposes. It has also of late been employed in the curious art of transferring printing, known under the name of Zincography, but owing to the ease with which this metal becomes coated with a film of oxide or carbonate, by exposure to the air, the plates cannot be preserved for any great length of time.]

82

[It has been observed by an anonymous reviewer (British and Foreign Medical Review, vol. viii. p. 361) that a passage in Strabo authorises the belief that the ancients were acquainted with this metal in its separate state, and that it is the false silver, ψευδάργυρον, of that ancient geographer.]

83

Bulletin des fouilles d’une ville Romaine, p. 11.

84

Plin. lib. xxxiv. sect. 22.

85

Zinc-ore, besides being mentioned by Aristotle and Strabo, is mentioned by Galen, De Simplic. Medicam. Facultatibus, lib. ix. p. 142. As he found no furnace-calamine when he resided in Cyprus, he procured from the overseer of the mines some raw cadmia, which had been found in the mountains and rivulets, and which certainly must have been calamine.

86

At first it was called æs cyprium, but in the course of time only cyprium; from which was at length formed cuprum. It cannot however be ascertained at what periods these appellations were common. The epithet cupreus occurs in manuscripts of Pliny and Palladius; but one cannot say whether later transcribers may not have changed cyprius into cupreus, with which they were perhaps better acquainted. The oldest writer who uses the word cuprum is Spartian; who says, in the Life of Caracalla, “cancelli ex ære vel cupro.” But may not the last word have been added to the text as a gloss? Pliny, book xxxvi. 26, says, “Addito cyprio et nitro;” which Isidore, xvi. 15, p. 393, expresses by the words adjecto cupro et nitro. The superiority of the Cyprian copper gave occasion to this appellation; as the best iron or steel was called chalybs, from the Chalybes (a people of Galatia) who prepared the finest, and carried on the greatest trade with it. But in what did the superiority of this Cyprian copper consist? In its purity, or in its colour, which approached near to that of gold? That island produced a great deal of ore which contained zinc, and abounded also with calamine. Pliny says, “in Cypro prima fuit æris inventio.” Red copper however had been known there from the earliest periods, so that the honour of its invention must be allowed to that island without any contradiction; and Pliny must undoubtedly allude in the above passage to some particular kind.

87

Dioscorides, book v. c. 84, first mentions some sorts of cadmia, βοτρυίτις, πλακωτὴ and ὀστρακῖτις. These, according to Galen and Pliny, are undoubtedly certain kinds of (ofenbruch) furnace-calamine; but Salmasius in his book De Homonymis, p. 230, and Sarracen in his Annotations, p. 113, are of opinion that Dioscorides considered them as native kinds of cadmia, or minerals abundant in zinc. I cannot however allow myself to believe that Dioscorides, who was so careful, and who immediately after describes the artificial preparation of cadmia clearly and properly, should have thus erred. Besides, every kind of ofenbruch (furnace-calamine) must have discovered its origin from fire to such a good judge of minerals as Dioscorides. I am convinced that he, as well as Galen and Pliny, considered the above kinds as furnace-calamine.

Pompholyx was the name of the white flowers of zinc which Dioscorides, v. 85, p. 352, compares to wool, and which by chemists were formerly called lana philosophica. The ancients collected these flowers when produced by the melting of zinc-ore; but they obtained them also by an apparatus which is fully described by Dioscorides and Galen, and which approaches near to that used for collecting arsenic in the poison melting-houses, as they are usually called.

88

This however I will not with certainty affirm. As calmey and galmey have probably taken their rise from cadmia or calimia, and as both these words signified proper calamine, as well as ofenbruch, the latter, perhaps, may at an earlier period have signified furnace-calamine.

89

Proofs respecting this subject may be found in Salmasius De Homonymis.

90

It is not certainly known when this Zosimus Panopolitanus lived. His works, which must contain abundance of information respecting the history of chemistry, have never yet been printed. The greater part of them were preserved in the king’s library at Paris. The receipt to which I allude has been inserted by Salmasius, p. 237.

91

We read in Observations sur la Physique, vi. p. 255, that for many years tutia has been collected and sold in the bishopric of Liege. Lehmann endeavours to show that it was made by the Jews in Poland. Novi Comment. Acad. Petrop. xii. p. 381. As the use of tutia [which is an impure oxide of zinc found in the chimneys of the furnaces in which zinc-ores are roasted, or in which zinciferous lead-ores are smelted] has been almost abandoned, because physicians prefer pure flowers of zinc, and because those who make pinchbeck employ purified zinc, it is probable that this substance will soon be entirely neglected.

92

De Mineralibus. Coloniæ, 1569, 12mo, p. 350, lib. iv. cap. 5; and lib. v. cap. 7, p. 388.

93

The other edition was printed at Stockholm and Hamburg, by Liebezeit, and is the same as that mentioned by H. Gatterer, in Anleitung den Harz zu bereisen, i. p. 313, and ii. p. 13.

94

“White vitriol also is made at Goslar, but by one citizen only, named Henni Balder. It is not procured by the evaporation of copper like other vitriol; but when large quantities of ore are roasted in the furnaces, a red substance is from time to time collected on the refuse of the ore, and found in some places half an ell thick. This substance, which is saltish, is formed into a lye, and boiled in small leaden pans. The rest of the process I do not know, but I observed that it crystallizes like saltpetre, but is stronger and whiter. It is also cast into small cakes about the thickness of one’s hand. This vitriol is employed by the leather-dressers, and may be used for many things instead of alum; but it cannot be used in dressing white skins, because it makes them yellowish.”

95

Bruckmann, ii. p. 446. [Schwartze, in his Pharm. Tabell. 2nd edit. p. 779, states that white vitriol was known towards the end of the thirteenth or at the commencement of the fourteenth century.]

96

Calvor, Historische Nachricht, p. 199 and 200. Properly it is written and pronounced jöckel. It is very remarkable that in Iceland this word at present signifies icicles.

97

Chemie, von Kessel, iv. 2, p. 832, where may be found the old opinions on this subject.

98

Brandt, in Acta Upsaliens. 1735. Hellot, in Mémoires de l’Acad. des Sciences, Paris, 1735, p. 29. [Sulphate of zinc or white vitriol is at present manufactured in considerable quantity for pharmaceutical purposes, and for the calico-printer.]

99

A great many may be found collected in Fuchs, Geschichte des Zinks. Erfurt, 1778, 8vo.

100

Paracelsi Opera. Strasb. 1616, fol. I shall here transcribe the principal passage. Of zinc: – There is another metal, zinc, which is in general unknown. It is a distinct metal of a different origin, though adulterated with many other metals. It can be melted, for it consists of three fluid principles, but it is not malleable. In its colour it is unlike all others, and does not grow in the same manner; but with its ultima materia I am as yet unacquainted, for it is almost as strange in its properties as argentum vivum. It admits of no mixture, will not bear the fabricationes of other metals, but keeps itself entirely to itself.

101

De Re Metallica, lib. ix. p. 329.

102

In J. Hornung’s Cista Medica. Lipsiæ.

103

How much duke Julius, who in other respects did great service to his country, suffered himself to be duped by the art of making gold, appears from an anecdote given by Rehtmeier, p. 1016. Of this anecdote I received from M. Ribbentrop an old account in manuscript, which one cannot read without astonishment. There is still shown, at the castle of Wolfenbuttle, an iron stool, on which the impostor, Anna Maria Zieglerinn, named Schluter Ilsche, was burnt, February 5, 1575.

104

Page 83: – “When the people at the melting-houses are employed in melting, there is formed under the furnace, in the crevices of the wall, among the stones where it is not well plastered, a metal which is called zinc or conterfeht; and when the wall is scraped, the metal falls down into a trough placed to receive it. This metal has a great resemblance to tin, but it is harder and less malleable, and rings like a small bell. It could be made also, if people would give themselves the trouble; but it is not much valued, and the servants and workmen only collect it when they are promised drink-money. They however scrape off more of it at one time than at another; for sometimes they collect two pounds, but at others not above two ounces. This metal, by itself, is of no use, as, like bismuth, it is not malleable; but when mixed with tin, it renders it harder and more beautiful, like the English tin. This zinc or bismuth is in great request among the alchemists.”

105

Kieshistorie, p. 571, and particularly p. 721.

106

Pott refers to Lawson’s Dissert. de Nihilo, and quotes some words from it; but I cannot find it; nor am I surprised at this, as it was not known to Dr. Watson. – See Chemical Essays, iv. p. 34. Pryce, in Mineral. Cornub., p. 49, says, “The late Dr. J. Lawson, observing that the flowers of lapis calaminaris were the same as those of zinc, and that its effects on copper were also the same with that semi-metal, never remitted his endeavours till he found the method of separating pure zinc from that ore.” The same account is given in the supplement to Chambers’s Dictionary, 1753, art. calm. and zinc; and in Campbell’s Political Survey of Britain, ii. p. 35. The latter however adds, that Lawson died too early to derive any benefit from his discovery.

107

Ricards Handbuch der Kaufleute, i. p. 57.

108

Raynal says that the company purchase it at the rate of twenty-eight florins three-quarters per hundred weight, and that this price is moderate. At Amsterdam, however, the price was commonly from seventeen to eighteen florins banco. According to a catalogue which I have in my possession, the price, on the 9th of May, 1788, was seventeen florins, and on the 22nd of January, 1781, it was only sixteen.

109

Linschoten, b. ii. c. 17. The author calls it calaem, the name used in the country. It is a kind of tin.

110

De Nummis Antiquis; in Grævii Thes. Antiq. Rom. xi. p. 1195.

111

Matthesius, Pred. v. p. 250. – “Conterfeil is a metal of little value, formed by additions and colouring substances, so that it resembles gold or silver, as an image, or anything counterfeited, does its archetype. Thus copper is coloured by calamine and other mixtures, in such a manner that it appears to be pure gold.” In the police ordinance issued at Strasburg in 1628, young women are forbidden to wear gold or silver, or any conterfaite, and everything that might have the appearance of gold or silver.

A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

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