“For sounds like thunder, and coruscations like lightning, may be made in the air, and they may be rendered even more horrible than those of nature herself. A small quantity of matter, properly manufactured, not larger than the human thumb, may be made to produce a horrible noise and coruscation. And this may be done many ways, by which a city or an army may be destroyed, as was the case when Gideon and his men broke their pitchers and exhibited their lamps, fire issuing out of them with inestimable noise, destroyed an infinite number of the army of the Midianites.” And in the eleventh chapter of the same epistle occurs the following passage: “Mix together saltpetre, luru vopo vir con utriet, and sulphur, and you will make thunder and lightning, if you know the method of mixing them.” Here all the ingredients of gunpowder are mentioned except charcoal, which is doubtless concealed under the barbarous terms luru vopo vir con utriet.
But though Bacon was acquainted with gunpowder, we have no evidence that he was the inventor. How far the celebrated Greek fire, concerning which so much has been written, was connected with gunpowder, it is impossible to say; but there is good evidence to prove that gunpowder was known and used in China before the commencement of the Christian era; and Lord Bacon is of opinion that the thunder and lightning and magic stated by the Macedonians to have been exhibited in Oxydrakes, when it was besieged by Alexander the Great, was nothing else than gunpowder. Now as there is pretty good evidence that the use of gunpowder had been introduced into Spain by the Moors, at least as early as the year 1343, and as Roger Bacon was acquainted with Arabic, it is by no means unlikely that he might have become acquainted with the mode of making the composition, and with its most remarkable properties, by perusing some Arabian writer, with whom we are at present unacquainted. Barbour, in his life of Bruce, informs us that guns were first employed by the English at the battle of Werewater, which was fought in 1327, about forty years after the death of Bacon.
In another part of the same book we have the phrase gynnys for crakys, showing that the term crakys was used to denote a gun or musket of some form or other. It is curious that the English would seem to have been the first European nation that employed gunpowder in war; they used it in the battle of Crecy, fought in 1346, when it was unknown to the French, and it is supposed to have contributed materially to the brilliant victory which was obtained.
4. Raymond Lully is said to have been a scholar and a friend of Roger Bacon. He was a most voluminous writer, and acquired as high a reputation as any of the alchymists. According to Mutius he was born in Majorca in the year 1235. His father was seneschal to King James the First of Arragon. In his younger days he went into the army; but afterwards held a situation in the court of his sovereign. Devoting himself to science he soon acquired a competent knowledge of Latin and Arabic. After studying in Paris he got the degree of doctor conferred upon him. He entered into the order of Minorites, and induced King James to establish a cloister of that order in Minorca. He afterwards travelled through Italy, Germany, England, Portugal, Cyprus, Armenia and Palestine. He is said by Mutius to have died in the year 1315, and to have been buried in Majorca. The following epitaph is given by Olaus Borrichius as engraven on his tomb:
M C C C in these lines denote 1300, and P which is the 15th letter of the alphabet denotes 15, so that if this epitaph be genuine it follows that his death took place in the year 1315.
It seems scarcely necessary to notice the story that Raymond Lully made a present to Edward, King of England, of six millions of pieces of gold, to enable him to make war on the Saracens, which sum that monarch employed, contrary to the intentions of the donor, in his French wars. This story cannot apply to Edward III., because in 1315, at the time of Raymond’s death, that monarch was only three years of age. It can scarcely apply to Edward II., who ascended the throne in 1305: but who had no opportunity of making war, either on the Saracens or French, being totally occupied in opposing the intrigues of his queen and rebellious subjects, to whom he ultimately fell a sacrifice. Edward the First made war both upon the Saracens and the French, and lived during the time of Raymond: but his wars with the Saracens were finished before he ascended the throne, and during the whole of his reign he was too much occupied with his projected conquest of Scotland, to pay much serious attention to any French war whatever. The story, therefore, cannot apply to any of the three Edwards, and cannot be true. Raymond Lully is said to have been stoned to death in Africa for preaching Christianity in the year 1315. Others will have it that he was alive in England in the year 1332, at which time his age would have been 97.
The following table exhibits a list of his numerous writings, most of which are to be found in the Theatrum Chemicum, the Artis Auriferæ, or the Biblotheca Chemica. 1. Praxis Universalis Magni Operis. 2. Clavicula. 3. Theoria et Practica. 4. Compendium Animæ Transmutationis Artis Metallorum. 5. Ultimum Testamentum. Of this work, which professes to give the whole doctrine of alchymy, there is an English translation. 6. Elucidatio Testamenti. 7. Potestas Divitiorum cum Expositione Testamenti Hermetis. 8. Compendium Artis Magicæ, quoad Compositionem Lapidis. 9. De Lapide et Oleo Philosophorum. 10. Modus accipiendi Aurum Potabile. 11. Compendium Alchymiæ et Naturalis Philosophiæ. 12. Lapidarium. 13. Lux Mercuriorum. 14. Experimenta. 15. Ars Compendiosa vel Vademecum. 16. De Accurtatione Lapidis.
Several other tracts besides these are named by Gmelin; but I have never seen any of them. I have attempted several times to read over the works of Raymond Lully, particularly his Last Will and Testament, which is considered the most important of them all. But they are all so obscure, and filled with such unintelligible jargon, that I have found it impossible to understand them. In this respect they form a wonderful contrast with the works of Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, which are comparatively plain and intelligible. For an account, therefore, of the chemical substances with which he was acquainted, I am obliged to depend on Gmelin; though I put no great confidence in his accuracy.
Like his predecessors, he was of opinion that all the metals are compounds of sulphur and mercury. But he seems first to have introduced those hieroglyphical figures or symbols, which appear in such profusion in the English translation of his Last Will and Testament, and which he doubtless intended to illustrate his positions. Though what other purpose they could serve, than to induce the reader to consider his statements as allegorical, it is not easy to conjecture. Perhaps they may have been designed to impose upon his contemporaries by an air of something very profound and inexplicable. For that he possessed a good deal of charlatanry is pretty evident, from the slightest glance at his performances.
He was acquainted with cream of tartar, which he distilled: the residue he burnt, and observed that the alkali extracted deliquesced when exposed to the air. He was acquainted with nitric acid, which he obtained by distilling a mixture of saltpetre and green vitriol. He mentions its power of dissolving, not merely mercury, but likewise other metals. He could form aqua regia by adding sal ammoniac or common salt to nitric acid, and he was aware of the property which it had of dissolving gold.
Spirit of wine was well known to him, and distinguished by him by the names of aqua vitæ ardens and argentum vivum vegetabile. He knew the method of rendering it stronger by an admixture of dry carbonate of potash, and of preparing vegetable tinctures by means of it. He mentions alum from Rocca, marcasite, white and red mercurial precipitate. He knew the volatile alkali and its coagulations by means of alcohol. He was acquainted with cupellated silver, and first obtained rosemary oil by distilling the plant with water. He employed a mixture of flour and white of egg spread upon a linen cloth to cement cracked glass vessels, and used other lutes for similar purposes.27
5. Arnoldus de Villa Nova is said to have been born at Villeneuve, a village of Provence, about the year 1240. Olaus Borrichius assures us, that in his time his posterity lived in the neighbourhood of Avignon; that he was acquainted with them, and that they were by no means destitute of chemical knowledge. He is said to have been educated at Barcelona, under John Casamila, a celebrated professor of medicine. This place he was obliged to leave, in consequence of foretelling the death of Peter of Arragon. He went to Paris, and likewise travelled through Italy. He afterwards taught publicly in the University of Montpelier. His reputation as a physician became so great, that his attendance was solicited in dangerous cases by several kings, and even by the pope himself. He was skilled in all the sciences of his time, and was besides a proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. When at Paris he studied astrology, and calculating the age of the world, he found that it was to terminate in the year 1335. The theologians of Paris exclaimed against this and several other of his opinions, and condemned our astrologer as a heretic. This obliged him to leave France; but the pope protected him. He died in the year 1313, on his way to visit Pope Clement V. who lay sick at Avignon. The following table exhibits a pretty full list of his works: 1. Antidotorium 2. De Vinis. 3. De Aquis Laxativis. 4. Rosarius Philosophorum. 5. Lumen Novum. 6. De Sigillis. 7. Flos Florum. 8. Epistolæ super Alchymia ad Regem Neapolitanum. 9. Liber Perfectionis Magisterii. 10. Succosa Carmina. 11. Questiones de Arte Transmutationis Metallorum. 12. Testamentum. 13. Lumen Luminum. 14. Practica. 15. Speculum Alchymiæ. 16. Carmen. 17. Questiones ad Bonifacium. 18. Semita Semitæ. 19. De Lapide Philosophorum. 20. De Sanguine Humano. 21. De Spiritu Vini, Vino Antimonii et Gemmorum Viribus.
Perhaps the most curious of all these works is the Rosarium, which is intended as a complete compend of all the alchymy of his time. The first part of it on the theory of the art is plain enough; but the second part on the practice, which is subdivided into thirty-two chapters, and which professes to teach the art of making the philosopher’s stone, is in many places quite unintelligible to me.
He considered, like his predecessors, mercury as a constituent of metals, and he professed a knowledge of the philosopher’s stone, which he could increase at pleasure. Gold and gold-water was, in his opinion, one of the most precious of medicines. He employed mercury in medicine. He seems to designate bismuth under the name marcasite. He was in the habit of preparing oil of turpentine, oil of rosemary, and spirit of rosemary, which afterwards became famous under the name of Hungary-water. These distillations were made in a glazed earthen vessel with a glass top and helm.
His works were published at Venice in a single folio volume, in the year 1505. There were seven subsequent editions, the last of which appeared at Strasburg in 1613.
6. John Isaac Hollandus and his countryman of the same name, were either two brothers or a father and son; it is uncertain which. For very few circumstances respecting these two laborious and meritorious men have been handed down to posterity. They were born in the village of Stolk in Holland, it is supposed in the 13th century. They certainly were after Arnoldus de Villa Nova, because they refer to him in their writings. They wrote many treatises on chemistry, remarkable, considering the time when they wrote, for clearness and precision, describing their processes with accuracy, and even giving figures of the instruments which they employed. This makes their books intelligible, and they deserve attention because they show that various processes, generally supposed of a more modern date were known to them. Their treatises are written partly in Latin and partly in German. The following list contains the names of most of them: 1. Opera Vegetabilia ad ejus alia Opera Intelligenda Necessaria. 2. Opera Mineralia seu de Lapide Philosophico Libri duo. 3. Tractat vom stein der Weisen. 4. Fragmenta Quædam Chemica. 5. De Triplice Ordine Elixiris et Lapidis Theorea. 6. Tractatus de Salibus et Oleis Metallorum. 7. Fragmentum de Opere Philosophorum. 8. Rariores Chemiæ Operationes. 9. Opus Saturni. 10. De Spiritu Urinæ. 11. Hand der Philosopher.
Olaus Borrichius complains that their opera mineralia abound with processes; but that they are ambiguous, and such that nothing certain can be deduced from them even after much labour. Hence they draw on the unwary tyro from labour to labour. I am disposed myself to draw a different conclusion, from what I have read of that elaborate work. It is true that the processes which profess to make the philosopher’s stone, are fallacious, and do not lead to the manufacture of gold, as the author intended, and expected: but it is a great deal when alchymistical processes are delivered in such intelligible language that you know the substances employed. This enables us easily to see the results in almost every case, and to know the new compounds which were formed during a vain search for the philosopher’s stone. Had the other alchymists written as plainly, the absurdity of their researches would have been sooner discovered, and thus a useless or pernicious investigation would have sooner terminated.
7. Basil Valentine is said to have been born about the year 1394, and is, perhaps, the most celebrated of all the alchymists, if we except Paracelsus. He was a Benedictine monk, at Erford, in Saxony. If we believe Olaus Borrichius, his writings were enclosed in the wall of a church at Erford, and were discovered long after his death, in consequence of the wall having been driven down by a thunderbolt. But this story is not well authenticated, and is utterly improbable. Much of his time seems to have been taken up in the preparation of chemical medicines. It was he that first introduced antimony into medicine; and it is said, though on no good authority, that he first tried the effects of antimonial medicines upon the monks of his convent, upon whom it acted with such violence that he was induced to distinguish the mineral from which these medicines had been extracted, by the name of antimoine (hostile to monks). What shows the improbability of this story is, that the works of Basil Valentine, and in particular his Currus triumphalis Antimonii, were written in the German language. Now the German name for antimony is not antimoine, but speissglass. The Currus triumphalis Antimonii was translated into Latin by Kerkringius, who published it, with an excellent commentary, at Amsterdam, in 1671.
Basil Valentine writes with almost as much virulence against the physicians of his time, as Paracelsus himself did afterwards. As no particulars of his life have been handed down to posterity, I shall satisfy myself with giving a catalogue of his writings, and then pointing out the most striking chemical substances with which he was acquainted.
The books which have appeared under the name of Basil Valentine, are very numerous; but how many of them were really written by him, and how many are supposititious, is extremely doubtful. The following are the principal: 1. Philosophia Occulta. 2. Tractat von naturlichen und ubernaturlichen Dingen; auch von der ersten tinctur, Wurzel und Geiste der Metallen. 3. Von dern grossen stein der Uhralten. 4. Vier tractatlein vom stein der Weisen. 5. Kurzer anhang und klare repetition oder Wiederholunge vom grosen stein der Uhralten. 6. De prima Materia Lapidis Philosophici. 7. Azoth Philosophorum seu Aureliæ occultæ de Materia Lapidis Philosophorum. 8. Apocalypsis Chemica. 9. Claves 12 Philosophiæ. 10. Practica. 11. Opus præclarum ad utrumque, quod pro Testamento dedit Filio suo adoptivo. 12. Letztes Testament. 13. De Microcosmo. 14. Von der grosen Heimlichkeit der Welt und ihrer Arzney. 15. Von der Wissenschaft der sieben Planeten. 16. Offenbahrung der verborgenen Handgriffe. 17. Conclusiones or Schlussreden. 18. Dialogus Fratris Alberti cum Spiritu. 19. De Sulphure et fermento Philosophorum. 20. Haliographia. 21. Triumph wagen Antimonii. 22. Einiger Weg zur Wahrheit. 23. Licht der Natur.
The only one of these works that I have read with care, is Kerkringius’s translation and commentary on the Currus triumphalis Antimonii. It is an excellent book, written with clearness and precision, and contains every thing respecting antimony that was known before the commencement of the 19th century. How much of this is owing to Kerkringius I cannot say, as I have never had an opportunity of seeing a copy of the original German work of Basil Valentine.
Basil Valentine, like Isaac Hollandus, was of opinion that the metals are compounds of salt, sulphur, and mercury. The philosopher’s stone was composed of the same ingredients. He affirmed, that there exists a great similarity between the mode of purifying gold and curing the diseases of men, and that antimony answers best for both. He was acquainted with arsenic, knew many of its properties, and mentions the red compound which it forms with sulphur. Zinc seems to have been known to him, and he mentions bismuth, both under its own name, and under that of marcasite. He was aware that manganese was employed to render glass colourless. He mentions nitrate of mercury, alludes to corrosive sublimate, and seems to have known the red oxide of mercury. It would be needless to specify the preparations of antimony with which he was acquainted; scarcely one was unknown to him which, even at present, exists in the European Pharmacopœias. Many of the preparations of lead were also familiar to him. He was aware that lead gives a sweet taste to vinegar. He knew sugar of lead, litharge, yellow oxide of lead, white carbonate of lead; and mentions that this last preparation was often adulterated in his time. He knew the method of making green vitriol, and the double chloride of iron and ammonia. He was aware that iron could be precipitated from its solution by potash, and that iron has the property of throwing down copper. He was aware that tin sometimes contains iron, and ascribed the brittleness of Hungarian iron to copper. He knew that oxides of copper gave a green colour to glass; that Hungarian silver contained gold; that gold is precipitated from aqua regia by mercury, in the state of an amalgam. He mentions fulminating gold. But the important facts contained in his works are so numerous, while we are so uncertain about the genuineness of the writings themselves, that it will scarcely be worth while to proceed further with the catalogue.
Thus I have brought the history of alchymy to the time of Paracelsus, when it was doomed to undergo a new and important change. It will be better, therefore, not to pursue the history of alchymy further, but to take up the history of true chemistry; and in the first place to endeavour to determine what chemical facts were known to the Ancients, and how far the science had proceeded to develop itself before the time of Paracelsus.
Notwithstanding the assertions of Olaus Borrichius, and various other writers who followed him on the same side, nothing is more certain than that the ancients have left no chemical writings behind them, and that no evidence whatever exists to prove that the science of chemistry was known to them. Scientific chemistry, on the contrary, took its origin from the collection and comparison of the chemical facts, made known by the practice and improvement of those branches of manufactures which can only be conducted by chemical processes. Thus the smelting of ores, and the reduction of the metals which they contain, is a chemical process; because it requires, for its success, the separation of certain bodies which exist in the ore chemically combined with the metals; and it cannot be done, except by the application or mixture of a new substance, having an affinity for these substances, and capable, in consequence, of separating them from the metal, and thus reducing the metal to a state of purity. The manufacture of glass, of soap, of leather, are all chemical, because they consist of processes, by means of which bodies, having an affinity for each other, are made to unite in chemical combination. Now I shall in this chapter point out the principal chemical manufactures that were known to the ancients, that we may see how much they contributed towards laying the foundation of the science. The chief sources of our information on this subject are the writings of the Greeks and Romans. Unfortunately the arts and manufactures stood in a very different degree of estimation among the ancients from what they do among the moderns. Their artists and manufacturers were chiefly slaves. The citizens of Greece and Rome devoted themselves to politics or war. Such of them as turned their attention to learning confined themselves to oratory, which was the most fashionable and the most important study, or to history, or poetry. The only scientific pursuits which ever engaged their attention, were politics, ethics, and mathematics. For, unless Archimedes is to be considered as an exception, scarcely any of the numerous branches of physics and mechanical philosophy, which constitute so great a portion of modern science, even attracted the attention of the ancients.
In consequence of the contemptible light in which all mechanical employments were viewed by the ancients, we look in vain in any of their writings for accurate details respecting the processes which they followed. The only exception to this general neglect and contempt for all the arts and trades, is Pliny the Elder, whose object, in his natural history, was to collect into one focus, every thing that was known at the period when he lived. His work displays prodigious reading, and a vast fund of erudition. It is to him that we are chiefly indebted for the knowledge of the chemical arts which were practised by the ancients. But the low estimation in which these arts were held, appears evident from the wonderful want of information which Pliny so frequently displays, and the erroneous statements which he has recorded respecting these processes. Still a great deal may be drawn from the information which has been collected and transmitted to us by this indefatigable natural historian.
I.—The ancients were acquainted with SEVEN METALS; namely, gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, and lead. They knew and employed various preparations of zinc, and antimony, and arsenic; though we have no evidence that these bodies were known to them in the metallic state.
1. Gold is spoken of in the second chapter of Genesis as existing and familiarly known before the flood.
“The name of the first is Pison; that is it which encompasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx-stone.” The Hebrew word for gold, בהז (zahav) signifies to be clear, to shine; alluding, doubtless, to the brilliancy of that metal. The term gold occurs frequently in the writings of Moses, and the metal must have been in common use among the Egyptians, when that legislator led the children of Israel out of Egypt.28 Gold is found in the earth almost always in a native state. There can be no doubt that it was much more abundant on the surface of the earth, and in the beds of rivers in the early periods of society, than it is at present: indeed this is obvious, from the account which Pliny gives of the numerous places in Asia and Greece, and other European countries, where gold was found in his time.
Gold, therefore, could hardly fail to attract the attention of the very first inhabitants of the globe; its beauty, its malleability, its indestructibility, would give it value: accident would soon discover the possibility of melting it by heat, and thus of reducing the grains or small pieces of it found on the surface of the earth into one large mass. It would be speedily made into ornaments and utensils of various kinds, and thus gradually would come into common use. This we find to have occurred in America, when it was discovered by Columbus. The inhabitants of the tropical parts of that vast continent were familiarly acquainted with gold; and in Mexico and Peru it existed in great abundance; indeed the natives of these countries seem to have been acquainted with no other metal, or at least no other metal was brought into such general use, except silver, which in Peru was, it is true, still more common than gold.
Gold, then, was probably the first metal with which man became acquainted; and that knowledge must have preceded the commencement of history, since it is mentioned as a common and familiar substance in the Book of Genesis, the oldest book in existence, of the authenticity of which we possess sufficient evidence. The period of leading the children of Israel out of Egypt by Moses, is generally fixed to have been one thousand six hundred and forty-eight years before the commencement of the Christian era. So early, then, we are certain, that not only gold, but the other six malleable metals known to the ancients, were familiar to the inhabitants of Egypt. The Greeks ascribe the discovery of gold to the earliest of their heroes. According to Pliny, it was discovered on Mount Pangæus by Cadmus, the Phœnician: but Cadmus’s voyage into Greece was nearly coeval with the exit of the Israelites out of Egypt, at which time we learn from Moses that gold was in common use in Egypt. All that can be meant, then, is, that Cadmus first discovered gold in Greece; not that he made mankind first acquainted with it. Others say that Thoas and Eaclis, or Sol, the son of Oceanus, first found gold in Panchaia. Thoas was a contemporary of the heroes of the Trojan war, or at least was posterior to the Argonautic expedition, and consequently long posterior to Moses and the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt.
2. Silver also was not only familiarly known to the Egyptians in the time of Moses, but, as we learn from Genesis, was coined into money before Joseph was set over the land of Egypt by Pharaoh, which happened one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two years before the commencement of the Christian era, and consequently two hundred and twenty-four years before the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt.
“And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.”29 The Hebrew word ףםכ (keseph), translated money, signifies silver, and was so called from its pale colour. Silver occurs in many other passages of the writings of Moses.30 The Greeks inform us, that Erichthonius the Athenian, or Ceacus, were the discoverers of silver; but both of these individuals were long posterior to the time of Joseph.
Silver, like gold, occurs very frequently in the metallic state. This, no doubt, was a still more frequent occurrence in the early ages of the world; it would therefore attract the attention of mankind as early as gold, and for the same reason. It is very ductile, very beautiful, and much more easily fused than gold: it would be therefore more easily reduced into masses, and formed into different utensils and ornaments than even gold itself. The ores of it which occur in the earth are heavy, and would therefore draw the attention of even rude men to them: they have, most of them at least, the appearance of being metallic, and the most common of them may be reduced to the state of metallic silver, simply by keeping them a sufficient time in fusion. Accordingly we find that the Peruvians, before they were overrun by the Spaniards, had made themselves acquainted with the mode of digging out and smelting the ores of silver which occur in their country, and that many of their most common utensils were made of that metal.
Silver and gold approached each other nearer in value among the ancients than at present: an ounce of fine gold was worth from ten to twelve ounces of fine silver, the variation depending upon the accidental relation of the supply of both metals. But after the discovery of America, the quantity of silver found in that continent, especially in Mexico, was so great, compared with that of the gold found, that silver became considerably cheaper; so that an ounce of fine gold came to be equivalent to about fourteen ounces and a half of fine silver. Of course these relative values have fluctuated a little according to the abundance of the supply of silver. Though the revolution in the Spanish American colonies has considerably diminished the supply of silver from the mines, that deficiency seems to have been supplied by other ways, and thus the relative proportion between the value of gold and silver has continued nearly unaltered.
3. That copper must have been known in the earliest ages of society, is sufficiently evident. It occurs frequently native, and could not fail to attract the attention of mankind, from its colour, weight, and malleability. It would not be difficult to fuse it even in the rudest ages: and when melted into masses, as it is malleable and ductile, it would not require much skill to convert it into useful and ornamental utensils. The Hebrew word תשחנ (nechooshat) translated brass, obviously means copper. We have the authority of the Book of Genesis to satisfy us that copper was known before the flood, and probably as early as either silver or gold.
“And Zillah, she also bore Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass (copper) and iron.”31
The word copper occurs in many other passages of the writings of Moses.32 That the Hebrew word translated brass must have meant copper is obvious, from the following passage: “Out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.”33 Brass does not exist in the earth, nor any ore of it, it is always made artificially; it must therefore have been copper, or an ore of copper, that was alluded to by Moses.
Copper must have been discovered and brought into common use long before iron or steel; for Homer represents his heroes of the Trojan war as armed with swords, &c. of copper. Copper itself is too soft to be made into cutting instruments; but the addition of a little tin gives it the requisite hardness. Now we learn from the analyses of Klaproth, that the copper swords of the ancients were actually hardened by the addition of tin.34
Copper was the metal in common use in the early part of the Roman commonwealth. Romulus coined copper money alone. Numa established a college of workers in copper (ærariorum fabrum).35
The Latin word æs sometimes signifies copper, and sometimes brass. It is plain from what Pliny says on the subject, that he did not know the difference between copper and brass; he says, that an ore of æs occurs in Cyprus, called chalcitis, where æs was first discovered. Here æs obviously means copper. In another place he says, that æs is obtained from a mineral called cadmia. Now from the account of cadmia by Pliny and Dioscorides, there cannot be a doubt that it is the ore to which the moderns have given the name of calamine, by means of which brass is made. It is sometimes a silicate and sometimes a carbonate of zinc; for both of these ores are confounded together under the name of cadmia, and both are employed in the manufacture of brass.
Solinus says, that æs was first made at Chalcis, a town in Eubœa. Hence the Greek name, χαλκος (chalkos), by which copper was distinguished.
The proper name for brass, by which is meant an alloy of copper and zinc, was aurichalcum, or golden, or yellow copper. Pliny says, that long before his time, the ore of aurichalcum was exhausted, so that no more of that beautiful alloy was made. Are we to conclude from this, that there once existed an ore consisting of calamine and ore of copper, mixed or united together? After the exhaustion of the aurichalcum mine, the salustianum became the most famous; but it soon gave place to the livianum, a copper-mine in Gaul, named after Livia, the wife of Augustus. Both these mines were exhausted in the time of Pliny. The æs marianum, or copper of Cordova, was the most celebrated in his time. This last æs, he says, absorbs most cadmia, and acquires the greatest resemblance to aurichalcum. We see from this, that in Pliny’s time brass was made artificially, and by a process similar to that still followed by the moderns.
The most celebrated alloy of copper among the ancients, was the æs corinthium, or Corinthian copper, formed accidentally, as Pliny informs us, during the burning of Corinth by Mummius in the year 608, after the building of Rome, or one hundred and forty-five years before the commencement of the Christian era. There were four kinds of it, of which Pliny gives the following description; not, however, very intelligible: 1. White. It resembled silver much in its lustre, and contained an excess of that metal. 2. Red. In this kind there is an excess of gold. 3. In the third kind, gold, silver, and copper are mixed in equal proportions. 4. The fourth kind is called hepatizon, from its having a liver colour. It is this colour which gives it its value.36
Copper was put by the ancients to almost all the uses to which it is put by the moderns. One of the great sources of consumption was bronze statues, which were first introduced into Rome after the conquest of Asia Minor. Before that time, the statues of the Romans were made of wood or stoneware. Pliny gives various formulas for making bronze for statues. Of these it may be worth while to put down the most material.
1. To new copper add a third part of old copper. To every hundred pounds of this mixture, twelve pounds and a half of tin37 are added, and the whole melted together.
2. Another kind of bronze for statues was formed, by melting together 100lbs. copper, 10lbs. lead, 5lbs. tin.
3. Their copper-pots for boiling consisted of 100lbs. of copper, melted with three or four pounds of tin.
The four celebrated statues of horses which, during the reign of Theodosius II. were transported from Chio to Constantinople; and, when Constantinople was taken and plundered by the Crusaders and Venetians in 1204, were sent by Martin Zeno and set up by the doge, Peter Ziani, in the portal of St. Mark; were in 1798, transported by the French to Paris; and finally, after the overthrow of Buonaparte, and the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, returned to Venice and placed upon their ancient pedestals. The metal of which these horses had been made was examined by Klaproth, and found by him composed of Copper, 993 Tin, 7 1000 38
Klaproth also analyzed an ancient bronze statue in one of the German cabinets, and found it composed of Copper, 916 Tin, 75 Lead, 97 1000 39
Several other old brass and bronze pieces of metal, very ancient, but found in Germany, were also analyzed by Klaproth. The result of his analyses was as follows:
The metal of which the altar of Krodo was made consisted of Copper, 69 Zinc, 18 Lead, 13 100 40
The emperor’s chair, which had in the eleventh century been transported from Harzburg to Goslar, where it still remains, was found to be composed of Copper, 92·5 Tin, 5·0 Lead, 2·5 100 41
Another piece of metal, which enclosed the high altar in a church in Germany, was composed of Copper, 75·0 Tin, 12·5 Lead, 12·5 100 42
These analyses, though none of them corresponds exactly with the proportions given by Pliny, confirms sufficiently his general statement, that the bronze of the ancients employed for statues was copper, alloyed with lead and tin.
Some of the bronze statues cast by the ancients were of enormous dimensions, and show decisively the great progress which had been made by them in the art of working and casting metals. The addition of the lead and tin would not only add greatly to the hardness of the alloy, but would at the same time render it more easily fusible. The bronze statue of Apollo, placed in the capitol at the time of Pliny, was forty-five feet high, and cost 500 talents, equivalent to about £50,000 of our money. It was brought from Apollonia, in Pontus, by Lucullus. The famous statue of the sun at Rhodes was the work of Chares, a disciple of Lysippus; it was ninety feet high, was twelve years in making, and cost 300 talents (about £30,000). It was made out of the engines of war left by Demetrius when he raised the siege of Rhodes. After standing fifty-six years, it was overthrown by an earthquake. It lay on the ground 900 years, and was sold by Mauvia, king of the Saracens, to a merchant, who loaded 900 camels with the fragments of it.
Copper was introduced into medicine at rather an early period of society, and various medicinal preparations of it are described by Dioscorides and Pliny. It remains for us to notice the most remarkable of these. Pliny mentions an institution, to which he gives the name of Seplasia; the object of which was, to prepare medicines for the use of medical men. It seems, therefore, to have been similar to our apothecaries’ shops of the present day. Pliny reprobates the conduct of the persons who had the charge of these Seplasiæ in his time. They were in the habit of adulterating medicines to such a degree, that nothing good or genuine could be procured from them.43
Both the oxides of copper were known to the ancients, though they were not very accurately distinguished from each other: they were known by the names flos æris and scoria æris, or squama æris. They were obtained by heating bars of copper red-hot and letting them cool, exposed to the air. What fell off during the cooling was the flos, what was driven off by blows of a hammer was the squama or scoria æris. It is obvious, that all these substances were nearly of the same nature, and that they were in reality mixtures of the black and red oxides of copper.
Stomoma seems also to have been an oxide of copper, which was gradually formed upon the surface of the metal, when it was kept in a state of fusion.
These oxides of copper were used as external applications in cases of polypi of the nose, diseases of the anus, ear, mouth, &c., seemingly as escharotics.
Ærugo, verdigris, was a subacetate of copper, doubtless often mixed with subacetate of zinc, as not only copper but brass also was used for preparing it. The mode of preparing this substance was similar to the process still followed. Whether verdigris was employed as a paint by the ancients does not appear; for Pliny takes no notice of any such use of it.
Chalcantum, called also atramentum sutorium, was probably a mixture of sulphate of copper and sulphate of iron. Pliny’s account of the mode of procuring it is too imperfect to enable us to form precise ideas concerning it; but it was crystallized on strings, which were extended for the purpose in the solution: its colour was blue, and it was transparent like glass. This description might apply to sulphate of copper; but as the substance was used for blackening leather, and on that account was called atramentum sutorium, it is obvious that it must have contained also sulphate of iron.
Chalcitis was the name for an ore of copper. The account given of it by Pliny agrees best with copper pyrites, which is now known to be a sulphur salt, composed of one atom of sulphide of copper (the acid) united to one atom of sulphide of iron (the base). Pliny informs us, that it is a mixture of copper, misy, and sory: its colour is that of honey. By age, he says, it changes into sory. I think it most probable that native sory, of which Pliny speaks, was sulphuret of copper, and artificial sory sulphate of copper. The native sory is said to constitute black veins in chalcitis. Pliny’s description of misy (μισυ) best agrees with copper pyrites. Dioscorides describes it as hard, as having the colour of gold, and as shining like a star.44 All this agrees pretty well with copper pyrites.
Scoleca (so called because it assumed the shape of a worm) was formed by triturating alumen, carbonate of soda, and white vinegar, till the matter became green. It was probably a mixture of sulphate of soda, acetate of soda, acetate of alumina, and acetate of copper, probably with more or less oxide of copper, &c., depending upon the proportions of the respective constituents employed.
Such are the preparations of copper, employed by the ancients. They were only used as external applications, partly as escharotics, and partly to induce ulcers to put on a healthy appearance. It does not appear that copper was ever used by the ancients as an internal remedy.
4. Though zinc in the metallic state was unknown to the ancients, yet as they knew some of its ores, and employed preparations of it in medicine, and were in the habit of alloying copper with it, and converting it into brass, it will be proper to state here what was known to them concerning it.
Pliny nowhere makes us acquainted with the process by which copper was converted into brass, nor does he seem to have been acquainted with it; but from several facts incidentally mentioned by him, it is obvious that their process was similar to that which is followed at present by modern brass-makers. The copper in grains is mixed with a certain quantity of calamine (cadmia) and charcoal, and exposed for some time to a moderate heat in a covered crucible. The calamine is reduced to the metallic state, and imbibed by the copper grains. When the copper is thus converted into brass, the temperature is raised sufficiently high to melt the whole: it is then poured out and cast into a slab or ingot.
The cadmia employed by the ancients in medicine was not calamine, but oxide of zinc, which sublimed during the fusion of brass in an open vessel. It was distinguished by a variety of names, according to the state in which it was obtained: the lighter portion was called capnitis. Botryitis was the name of the portion in the interior of the chimney: the name was derived from some resemblance which it was supposed to have to a bunch of grapes. It had two colours, ash and red. The red variety was reckoned best. This red colour it might derive from some copper mixed with it, but more probably from iron; for a small quantity of oxide of iron is sufficient to give oxide of zinc a rather beautiful red colour. The portion collected on the sides of the furnace was called placitis: it constituted a crust, and was distinguished by different names, according to its colour; onychitis when it was blue externally, but spotted internally: ostracitis, when it was black and dirty-looking. This last variety was considered as an excellent application to wounds. The best cadmia in Pliny’s time was furnished by the furnaces of the Isle of Cyprus: it was used as an external application in ulcers, inflammations, eruptions, &c., so that its use in medicine was pretty much the same as at present. Sulphate and acetate of zinc were unknown to the ancients. No attempt seems to have been made by them to introduce any preparations of zinc as internal medicines.
Pompholyx was the name given to oxide of zinc, sublimed by the combustion of the zinc which exists in brass. Spodos seems to have been a mixture of oxides of zinc and copper. There were different varieties of it distinguished by various names.45
5. Iron exists very rarely in the earth in a metallic state, but most commonly in the state of an oxide; and the processes necessary to extract metallic iron from these ores are much more complicated, and require much greater skill, than the reduction of gold, silver, or copper from their respective ores. This would lead us to expect that iron would have been much longer in being discovered than the three metals whose names have been just given. But we learn from the Book of Genesis that iron, like copper and gold, was known before the flood, Tubal-cain being represented as an artificer in copper and iron.46 The Hebrew word for iron, לזרב (barzel), is said to be derived from רב (bar), bright, לזנ (nazal), to melt; and would lead one to the suspicion, that it referred to cast iron rather than malleable iron. It is possible that in these early times native iron may have existed as well as native gold, silver, and copper; and in this way Tubal-cain may have become acquainted with the existence and properties of this metal. In the time of Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, iron must have been in common use in Egypt: for he mentions furnaces for working iron;47 ores from which it was extracted;48 and tells us that swords,49 knives,50 axes,51 and tools for cutting stones,52 were then made of that metal. Now iron in its pure metallic state is too soft to be applied to these uses: it is obvious, therefore, that in Moses’s time, not only iron but steel also must have been in common use in Egypt. From this we see how much further advanced the Egyptians were than the Greeks in the knowledge of the manufacture of this most important metal: for during the Trojan war, which was several centuries after the time of Moses, Homer represents his heroes as armed with swords of copper, hardened by tin, and as never using any weapons of iron whatever. Nay, in such estimation was it held, that Achilles, when he celebrated games in honour of Patrocles, proposes a ball of iron as one of his most valuable prizes.53