. De re metallica. Metallurgy; Mineral industries. 432 BOOK IX. covered with lids a digit thick, and they are smeared over on the inside with liquid litharge, and on the lid are placed heavy stones. The pots are set on the furnace, and the ore is heated and similarly exhales quicksilver, which fleeing from the heat takes refuge in the lid ; on congealing there, it falls back into the ashes, from which, when washed, the quicksilver is Stones. -Furnace. By these five methods quicksilver may be made, and of these not one is to be despised or repudiated ; nevertheless, if the mine supp
. De re metallica. Metallurgy; Mineral industries. 432 BOOK IX. covered with lids a digit thick, and they are smeared over on the inside with liquid litharge, and on the lid are placed heavy stones. The pots are set on the furnace, and the ore is heated and similarly exhales quicksilver, which fleeing from the heat takes refuge in the lid ; on congealing there, it falls back into the ashes, from which, when washed, the quicksilver is Stones. -Furnace. By these five methods quicksilver may be made, and of these not one is to be despised or repudiated ; nevertheless, if the mine supplies a great abundance of ore, the first is the most expeditious and practical, because a large quantit}' of ore can be reduced at the same time without great expense. ^^ ^^HisTORiCAL Note on the Metallurgy of Quicksilver. The earliest mention of quicksilver appears to have been by Aristotle (Meteorologica IV, 8, ii), who speaks of it as fiuid silver (argyros chytos). Theophrastus (105) states ; " Such is the production of " quicksilver, which has its uses. This is obtained from cinnabar rubbed with vinegar in a " brass mortar with a brass ; (Hill's Trans., p. 139). Theophrastus also (103) mentions cinnabar from Spain and elsewhere. Dioscorides (v, 70) appears to be the first to describe the recovery of quicksilver by distillation : " Quicksilver {hydrargyros, , liquid silver) is made from ammion, which is called cinnabari. An iron bowl containing cinnahari " is put into an earthen vessel and covered over with a cup-shaped lid smeared with clay. " Then it is set on a fire of coals and the soot which sticks to the cover when wiped off and " cooled is quicksilver. Quicksilver is also found in drops falling from the walls of the silver " mines. Some say there are quicksilver mines. It can be kept only in vessels of glass, lead, " tin (?), or silver, for if put in vessels of any other substances it consumes them and flows
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