Chapter XL: Book XII (3)

It is desirable here to enquire into the nature of the substances given by all of the old mineralogists under the Latinized Greek terms _chalcitis_, _misy_, _sory_, and _melanteria_. The first mention of these minerals is in Dioscorides, who (V., 75-77) says: "The best _chalcitis_ is like copper. It is friable, not stony, and is intersected by long brilliant veins.... _Misy_ is obtained from Cyprus; it should have the appearance of gold, be hard, and when pulverised it should have the colour of gold and sparkle like stars. It has the same properties as _chalcitis_.... The best is from Egypt.... One kind of _melanteria_ congeals like salt in the entries to copper mines. The other kind is earthy and appears on the surface of the aforesaid mines. It is found in the mines of Cilicia and other regions. The best has the colour of sulphur, is smooth, pure, homogenous, and upon contact with water immediately becomes black.... Those who consider _sory_ to be the same as _melanteria_, err greatly. _Sory_ is a species of its own, though it is not dissimilar. The smell of _sory_ is oppressive and provokes nausea. It is found in Egypt and in other regions, as Libya, Spain, and Cyprus. The best is from Egypt, and when broken is black, porous, greasy, and astringent." Pliny (XXXIV., 29-31) says:--"That is called _chalcitis_ from which, as well as itself copper (?) is extracted by heat. It differs from _cadmia_ in that this is obtained from rocks near the surface, while that is taken from rocks below the surface. Also _chalcitis_ is immediately friable, being naturally so soft as to appear like compressed wool. There is also this other distinction; _chalcitis_ contains three other substances, copper, _misy_, and _sory_. Of each of these we shall speak in their appropriate places. It contains elongated copper veins. The most approved kind is of the colour of honey; it is streaked with fine sinuous veins and is friable and not stony. It is considered most valuable when fresh.... The _sory_ of Egypt is the most esteemed, being much superior to that of Cyprus, Spain, and Africa; although some prefer the _sory_ from Cyprus for affections of the eyes. But from whatever nation it comes, the best is that which has the strongest odour, and which, when ground up, becomes greasy, black, and spongy. It is a substance so unpleasant to the stomach that some persons are nauseated by its smell. Some say that _misy_ is made by the burning of stones in trenches, its fine yellow powder being mixed with the ashes of pine-wood. The truth is, as I said above, that though obtained from the stone, it is already made and in solid masses, which require force to detach them. The best comes from the works of Cyprus, its characteristics being that when broken it sparkles like gold, and when ground it presents a sandy appearance, but on the contrary, if heated, it is similar to _chalcitis_. _Misy_ is used in refining gold...."

Agricola's views on the subject appear in _De Natura Fossilium_. He says (p. 212):--"The cupriferous pyrites (_pyrites aerosus_) called _chalcitis_ is the mother and cause of _sory_--which is likewise known as mine _vitriol_ (_atramentum metallicum_)--and _melanteria_. These in turn yield vitriol and such related things. This may be seen especially at Goslar, where the nodular lumps of dark grey colour are called vitriol stone (_lapis atramenti_). In the centre of them is found greyish pyrites, almost dissolved, the size of a walnut. It is enclosed on all sides, sometimes by _sory_, sometimes by _melanteria_. From them start little veinlets of greenish vitriol which spread all over it, presenting somewhat the appearance of hairs extending in all directions and cohering together.... There are five species of this solidified juice, _melanteria_, _sory_, _chalcitis_, _misy_, and vitriol. Sometimes many are found in one place, sometimes all of them, for one originates from the other. From pyrites, which is, as one might say, the root of all these juices, originates the above-mentioned _sory_ and _melanteria_. From _sory_, _chalcitis_, and _melanteria_ originate the various kinds of vitriol.... _Sory_, _melanteria_, _chalcitis_, and _misy_ are always native; vitriol alone is either native or artificial. From them vitriol effloresces white, and sometimes green or blue. _Misy_ effloresces not only from _sory_, _melanteria_, and _chalcitis_, but also from all the vitriols, artificial as well as natural.... _Sory_ and _melanteria_ differ somewhat from the others, but they are of the same colours, grey and black; but _chalcitis_ is red and copper-coloured; _misy_ is yellow or gold-coloured. All these native varieties have the odour of lightning (brimstone), but _sory_ is the most powerful. The feathery vitriol is soft and fine and hair-like, and _melanteria_ has the appearance of wool and it has a similarity to salt; all these are rare and light; _sory_, _chalcitis_, and _misy_ have the following relations. _Sory_ because of its density has the hardness of stone, although its texture is very coarse. _Misy_ has a very fine texture. _Chalcitis_ is between the two; because of its roughness and strong odour it differs from _melanteria_, although they do not differ in colour. The vitriols, whether natural or artificial, are hard and dense ... as regarding shape, _sory_, _chalcitis_, _misy_, and _melanteria_ are nodular, but _sory_ is occasionally porous, which is peculiar to it. _Misy_ when it effloresces in no great quantity from the others is like a kind of pollen, otherwise it is nodular. _Melanteria_ sometimes resembles wool, sometimes salt."

The sum and substance, therefore, appears to be that _misy_ is a yellowish material, possibly ochre, and _sory_ a blackish stone, both impregnated with vitriol. _Chalcitis_ is a partially decomposed pyrites; and _melanteria_ is no doubt native vitriol. From this last term comes the modern _melanterite_, native hydrous ferrous sulphate. Dana (System of Mineralogy, p. 964) considers _misy_ to be in part _copiapite_--basic ferric sulphate--but any such part would not come under Agricola's objection to it as a source of vitriol. The disabilities of this and _chalcitis_ may, however, be due to their copper content.

[12] Agricola (_De Nat. Fos._, 221) says:--"There is a species of artificial sulphur made from sulphur and iron hammer-scales, melted together and poured into moulds. This, because it heals scabs of horses, is generally called _caballinum_." It is difficult to believe such a combination was other than iron sulphide, but it is equally difficult to understand how it was serviceable for this purpose.

[13] Inasmuch as pyrites is discussed in the next paragraph, the material of the first distillation appears to be native sulphur. Until the receiving pots became heated above the melting point of the sulphur, the product would be "flowers of sulphur," and not the wax-like product. The equipment described for pyrites in the next paragraph would be obviously useful only for coarse material.

But little can be said on the history of sulphur; it is mentioned often enough in the Bible and also by Homer (Od. XXII., 481). The Greeks apparently knew how to refine it, although neither Dioscorides nor Pliny specifically describes such an operation. Agricola says (_De Nat. Fos._, 220): "Sulphur is of two kinds; the mineral, which the Latins call _vivum_, and the Greeks _apyron_, which means 'not exposed to the fire' (_ignem non expertum_) as rightly interpreted by Celsius; and the artificial, called by the Greeks _pepyromenon_, that is, 'exposed to the fire.'" In Book X., the expression _sulfur ignem non expertum_ frequently appears, no doubt in Agricola's mind for native sulphur, although it is quite possible that the Greek distinction was between "flowers" of sulphur and the "wax-like" variety.

[14] The substances referred to under the names _bitumen_, _asphalt_, _maltha_, _naphtha_, _petroleum_, _rock-oil_, etc., have been known and used from most ancient times, and much of our modern nomenclature is of actual Greek and Roman ancestry. These peoples distinguished three related substances,--the Greek _asphaltos_ and Roman _bitumen_ for the hard material,--Greek _pissasphaltos_ and Roman _maltha_ for the viscous, pitchy variety--and occasionally the Greek _naphtha_ and Roman _naphtha_ for petroleum proper, although it is often enough referred to as liquid _bitumen_ or liquid _asphaltos_. The term _petroleum_ apparently first appears in Agricola's _De Natura Fossilium_ (p. 222), where he says the "oil of bitumen ... now called _petroleum_." Bitumen was used by the Egyptians for embalming from pre-historic times, _i.e._, prior to 5000 B.C., the term "mummy" arising from the Persian word for bitumen, _mumiai_. It is mentioned in the tribute from Babylonia to Thotmes III., who lived about 1500 B.C. (Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians I., p. 397). The Egyptians, however, did not need to go further afield than the Sinai Peninsula for abundant supplies. Bitumen is often cited as the real meaning of the "slime" mentioned in Genesis (XI., 3; XIV., 10), and used in building the Tower of Babel. There is no particular reason for this assumption, except the general association of Babel, Babylon, and Bitumen. However, the Hebrew word _sift_ for pitch or bitumen does occur as the cement used for Moses's bulrush cradle (Exodus II., 3), and Moses is generally accounted about 1300 B.C. Other attempts to connect Biblical reference to petroleum and bitumen revolve around Job XXIX., 6, Deut. XXXII., 13, Maccabees II., I, 18, Matthew V., 13, but all require an unnecessary strain on the imagination.

The plentiful occurrence of bitumen throughout Asia Minor, and particularly in the Valley of the Euphrates and in Persia, is the subject of innumerable references by writers from Herodotus (484-424 B.C.) down to the author of the company prospectus of recent months. Herodotus (I., 179) and Diodorus Siculus (I) state that the walls of Babylon were mortared with bitumen--a fact partially corroborated by modern investigation. The following statement by Herodotus (VI., 119) is probably the source from which Pliny drew the information which Agricola quotes above. In referring to a well at Ardericca, a place about 40 miles from ancient Susa, in Persia, Herodotus says:--"For from the well they get bitumen, salt, and oil, procuring it in the way that I will now describe: they draw with a swipe, and instead of a bucket they make use of the half of a wine-skin; with this the man dips and, after drawing, pours the liquid into a reservoir, wherefrom it passes into another, and there takes three different shapes. The salt and bitumen forthwith collect and harden, while the oil is drawn off into casks. It is called by the Persians _rhadinace_, is black, and has an unpleasant smell." (Rawlinson's Trans. III., p. 409). The statement from Pliny (XXXI., 39) here referred to by Agricola, reads:--"It (salt) is made from water of wells poured into salt-pans. At Babylon the first condensed is a bituminous liquid like oil which is burned in lamps. When this is taken off, salt is found beneath. In Cappadocia also the water from both wells and springs is poured into salt-pans." When petroleum began to be used as an illuminant it is impossible to say. A passage in Aristotle's _De Mirabilibus_ (127) is often quoted, but in reality it refers only to a burning spring, a phenomenon noted by many writers, but from which to its practical use is not a great step. The first really definite statement as to the use of petroleum as an illuminant is Strabo's quotation (XVI., 1, 15) from Posidonius: "Asphaltus is found in great abundance in Babylonia. Eratosthenes describes it as follows:--The liquid _asphaltus_, which is called _naphtha_, is found in Susa; the dry kind, which can be made solid, in Babylonia. There is a spring of it near the Euphrates.... Others say that the liquid kind is also found in Babylonia.... The liquid kind, called _naphtha_, is of a singular nature. When it is brought near the fire, the fire catches it.... Posidonius says that there are springs of _naphtha_ in Babylonia, some of which produce white, others black _naphtha_; the first of these, I mean white _naphtha_, which attracts flame, is liquid sulphur; the second or black _naphtha_ is liquid _asphaltus_, and is burnt in lamps instead of oil." (Hamilton's Translation, Vol. III., p. 151). Eratosthenes lived about 200 B.C., and Posidonius about 100 years later. Dioscorides (I., 83), after discussing the usual sources of bitumen says: "It is found in a liquid state in Agrigentum in Sicily, flowing on streams; they use it for lights in lanterns in place of oil. Those who call the Sicilian kind oil are under a delusion, for it is agreed that it is a kind of liquid bitumen." Pliny adds nothing much new to the above quotations, except in regard to these same springs (XXXV., 51) that "The inhabitants collect it on the panicles of reeds, to which it quickly adheres and they use it for burning in lamps instead of oil." Agricola (_De Natura Fossilium_, Book IV.) classifies petroleum, coal, jet, and obsidian, camphor, and amber as varieties of bitumen, and devotes much space to the refutation of the claims that the last two are of vegetable origin.

[15] Agricola (_De Natura Fossilium_, p. 215) in discussing substances which originate from copper, gives among them green _chrysocolla_ (as distinguished from borax, etc., see Note 8 above), and says: "Native _chrysocolla_ originates in veins and veinlets, and is found mostly by itself like sand, or adhering to metallic substances, and when scraped off from this appears similar to its own sand. Occasionally it is so thin that very little can be scraped off. Or else it occurs in waters which, as I have said, wash these minerals, and afterward it settles as a powder. At Neusohl in the Carpathians, green water flowing from an ancient tunnel wears away this _chrysocolla_ with it. The water is collected in thirty large reservoirs, where it deposits the _chrysocolla_ as a sediment, which they collect every year and sell,"--as a pigment. This description of its occurrence would apply equally well to modern _chrysocolla_ or to malachite. The solution from copper ores would deposit some sort of green incrustation, of carbonates mostly.

[16] The statement in Pliny (XXXVI., 66) to which Agricola refers is as follows: "Then as ingenuity was not content with the mixing of _nitrum_, they began the addition of _lapis magnes_, because of the belief that it attracts liquefied glass as well as iron. In a similar manner many kinds of brilliant stones began to be added to the melting, and then shells and fossil sand. Authors tell us that the glass of India is made of broken crystal, and in consequence nothing can compare with it. Light and dry wood is used for fusing, _cyprium_ (copper?) and _nitrum_ being added, particularly _nitrum_ from Ophir etc."

A great deal of discussion has arisen over this passage, in connection with what this _lapis magnes_ really was. Pliny (XXXVI., 25) describes the lodestone under this term, but also says: "There (in Ethiopia) also is _haematites magnes_, a stone of blood colour, which shows a red colour if crushed, or of saffron. The _haematites_ has not the same property of attracting iron as _magnes_." Relying upon this sentence for an exception to the ordinary sort of _magnes_, and upon the impossible chemical reaction involved, most commentators have endeavoured to show that lodestone was not the substance meant by Pliny, but manganese, and thus they find here the first knowledge of this mineral. There can be little doubt that Pliny assumed it to be the lodestone, and Agricola also. Whether the latter had any independent knowledge on this point in glass-making or was merely quoting Pliny--which seems probable--we do not know. In any event, Biringuccio, whose work preceded _De Re Metallica_ by fifteen years, does definitely mention manganese in this connection. He dismisses this statement of Pliny with the remark (p. 37-38): "The Ancients wrote about lodestones, as Pliny states, and they mixed it together with _nitrum_ in their first efforts to make glass." The following passage from this author (p. 36-37), however, is not only of interest in this connection, but also as possibly being the first specific mention of manganese under its own name. Moreover, it has been generally overlooked in the many discussions of the subject. "Of a similar nature (to _zaffir_) is also another mineral called _manganese_, which is found, besides in Germany, at the mountain of Viterbo in Tuscany ... it is the colour of _ferrigno scuro_ (iron slag?). In melting it one cannot obtain any metal ... but it gives a very fine colour to glass, so that the glass workers use it in their pigments to secure an azure colour.... It also has such a property that when put into melted glass it cleanses it and makes it white, even if it were green or yellow. In a hot fire it goes off in a vapour like lead, and turns into ashes."

To enter competently into the discussion of the early history of glass-making would employ more space than can be given, and would lead but to a sterile end. It is certain that the art was pre-Grecian, and that the Egyptians were possessed of some knowledge of making and blowing it in the XI Dynasty (according to Petrie 3,500 B.C.), the wall painting at Beni Hassen, which represents glass-blowing, being attributed to that period. The remains of a glass factory at Tel el Amarna are believed to be of the XVIII Dynasty. (Petrie, 1,500 B.C.). The art reached a very high state of development among the Greeks and Romans. No discussion of this subject omits Pliny's well-known story (XXXVI, 65), which we also add: "The tradition is that a merchant ship laden with _nitrum_ being moored at this place, the merchants were preparing their meal on the beach, and not having stones to prop up their pots, they used lumps of _nitrum_ from the ship, which fused and mixed with the sands of the shore, and there flowed streams of a new translucent liquid, and thus was the origin of glass."