ANCIENT MINERALOGY;
OR,
AN INQUIRY RESPECTING
MINERAL SUBSTANCES
MENTIONED BY
THE ANCIENTS:
WITH OCCASIONAL REMARKS
ON
THE USES TO WHICH THEY WERE APPLIED.
BY N. F. MOORE, LL.D.
seconb abfttfonr.
NEW  YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1859.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-nine, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION,
THE author is aware that in venturing upon
a scientific theme he transcends the limits of
his province, but he relies for indulgence on
the fact that his subject is considered chiefly
in the light in which it presents itself in the
writings of those ancients whom it is his proper
business to interpret.* It is, moreover, possible for one who makes no pretension to original
discovery-who, far from being a proficient, is
himself a learner, to collect from various quarters, and arrange, what may contribute to the
entertainment or instruction of others who
want leisure or opportunity for similar pursuits.
And if in the performance of this task he occasionally fail, he may reasonably hope to find in
those whom superior knowledge qualifies to aid
* The author was professor of the Greek and Latin languages in Columbia College at that time.




iv             PREFACE.
him, not severe censors, but indulgent friends.
As such, then, does the author look to the learned and scientific, for benevolent suggestions,
that may enable him, perhaps, at some future
time, to render this, now very imperfect essay,
somewhat less unworthy their regard.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
AFTER an interval of four-and-twenty years
is brought out this second edition of " Ancient
Mineralogy," not because the author thinks
there is any call for it, but chiefly with a view
to his own personal gratification; that he may
enjoy the satisfaction it will afford him to leave
his little work in a somewhat more comely and
creditable shape. He is aware that the mass
of readers will care little about the shape in
which a work of this sort, wherein they can
feel so little interest, may appear; but, though
conscious of its many imperfections, and how
little he has accomplished of the much that
might be done in the direction he has followed,
he will not despair of his book's finding, in a
certain class of readers, a considerable number
to whom it will be acceptable: to them he would
recommend it, humbly hoping that they will
read it with the indulgence it requires.








ANCIENT MINERALOGY,
ONE who professes his intention to treat of
Ancient Mineralogy may well anticipate some
objection to the term, and that it will perhaps
be asked, " What is meant by Ancient Mineralogy? Mineralogy is a science with which the
ancients were wholly unacquainted." And certainly they were so, if we understand-what
the term now implies-a well-digested classification and systematic arrangement of all known
substances that compose the mineral world.
But, in regard as well to Mineralogy as to Botany, Chemistry, and other branches of Natural
Science, it will hardly be denied that the ancients possessed much and various information;
although, on the other hand, it may be granted
that they had little science, according to the
modern acceptation of the term.  Aristotle
was a good zoologist, and Theophrastus a good
botanist and  mineralogist, notwithstanding
their ignorance of modern systems; and they




8     ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
fail to obtain, in these characters, the credit
they deserve, because the multitude of facts
knQwn to them from observation and experience were not systematically connected and
completed by the addition of others derived
from analogical reasoning, farther experiment,
and just induction.
Mineralogy now claims with justice to be
regarded as a science, and, in fact, as one of the
three grand divisions of Natural History, it
holds an elevated rank, all inorganic bodiesthe whole mineral kingdom-belonging to its
domain.
In accumulating the varied objects of his science, the mineralogist has explored almost every region of the globe, the recesses of every
cavern, the depths of every mine, the heart of
every rock into which modern enterprise has
pierced. The profusion of minerals thus brought
to light has been submitted to analysis, and their
true composition, as ascertained by the result,
has furnished the basis generally adopted for
their scientific arrangement. Some writers,
however, have been much guided in their classification of minerals by external or physical
characters collectively considered; while others,
again, have regarded especially that most re



ANCIENT MINERALOGY.   9
markable and constant of these physical characters, their crystalline form.
In the writings of the ancients we should
look in vain for any such well-grounded comprehensive system. They were, for the most
part, content with describing individually the
minerals they knew, by some more striking external characters, or some obvious property, or
by the uses to which they were respectively
applied. And in this branch of natural science, as well as in others, there is often great
difficulty in ascertaining to what species objects
mentioned by the ancients are to be referred,
because they were apt to dwell upon features,
striking, perhaps, in the individual before them,
but in no wise characteristic of its kind. And
they were, besides, so poetical often and imaginative that they could hardly bring themselves
to give a plain unvarnished description of any
thing remarkable, whether in nature or in art.'
1 Every page of Pliny's great work, though one in which
we might least expect to meet with poetry, will supply examples. Speaking, for instance, of the mysterious virtue of
the magnet, he exclaims, "What is more sluggish than the
rigid stone? Lo! Nature hath given to it hands and feeling. What more stubborn than the obdurate iron? But it
yields and becomes gentle; for, attracted by the magnetic
stone, that substance which is the subduer of all things else




10  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
But, ii justice to the ancients, we should bear
in mind that the science of mineralogy is, even
now, of very recent date; that it is only within the present century that any work has appeared containing more philosophical views of
the subject than were exhibited in the little
treatise of Theophrastus above two thousand
years ago. We know that the ancients were
acquainted with the external characters, at
least, of a vast number of minerals; with the
uses and properties of very many; and we find
the only two ancient authors, who treat of them
professedly, making various attempts at classification. Why, then, may we not speak of ancient mineralogy as well as of the mineralogy
of the last century? If we should light in Pompeii on a cabinet of minerals, which would be
one of Pliny's time, it might be found, perhaps, full as well arranged as was that of Sir
John Hill, the translator of Theophrastus, sixty
years ago.
Besides the descriptions given by Dioscorides' of many mineral substances, which form
flies toward the unseen power, and when near stands still, is
held, and clings to its embrace."-H. N., xxxvi., 25.
1 Whom Beckmann (Hist. of Inv., iii., 73) pronounces a
good judge of minerals.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  11
an important portion of his materia medica, and
the incidental notices of them scattered through
the physicians, philosophers, historians, geographers and poets of antiquity, there remains a
short treatise of Theophrastus, expressly " Upon Stones," and the last five books of Pliny's
great work are chiefly devoted to the consideration of minerals.
The little book of Theophrastus appears to
have formed part of some larger work; in which
he may, perhaps, have treated more fully of the
character and properties of minerals. In the
piece which has survived to us his chief endeavor seems to be the settlement of some principle of classification; and, though he introduces a considerable number of mineral substances, it is often rather by way of illustration
than with a view to characterize and describe
them; and he evidently refers to them in most
cases as to substances with which his reader is
acquainted.
Beckmann pronounces Theophrastus ""the
ablest and most accurate mineralogist of the
ancients," thus doing justice to the philosophical character of his work, and admitting that
the ancients possessed such an acquaintance
with minerals as might be styled mineralogy.




12    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
Throughout the work of Theophrastus we can
perceive that he is striving, in a very philosophical spirit, to lay down some satisfactory basis
of arrangement; but the appropriate crystalline
forms of minerals not having been attended to,
except in some few instances, and their chemical composition being totally unknown, his efforts are, of course, not entirely successful. If
we view in this light Theophrastus's work, and
bear in mind that it was not his intention to
describe, nor even to name all the then known
minerals, we shall less wonder at his brevity,
and at the slight and merely passing notice he
bestows on some of the most important substances.
That those he mentions constitute but a small
portion of those known to his contemporaries
we may infer from the fact that Pliny, though
he draws from Grecian authors chiefly, many
of them coeval with or older than Theophrastus,
and though he mentions at least twenty minerals for each one named by Theophrastus, concludes by saying that there is no end to the
names of these mineral productions, and that it
is far from his intention to discourse of all.
Theophrastus distinguishes minerals according as they are capable of effecting, liable or not




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    13
liable to sufer something. Thus the emerald,
he observes, can impart its color to the water in
which it is immersed; the Heraclean stone possesses an attractive power. Some stones may
be carved, or turned in a lathe, or divided by a
saw; while upon some, steel makes no impression, and others it touches with great difficulty.
Sometimes the same character, as to color, hardness, and other properties, belongs to masses of
considerable extent; as in the quarries of Paros, Pentelicus, and Chios. Other properties,
again, belong to minerals which occur rarely
and of small size; as the emerald, the sard, the
carbuncle, the sapphire, and, generally, those
which are engraved as seals. He also divides
minerals into fusible and infusible, combustible
and incombustible, and suggests various examples to illustrate these distinctions.
Pliny handles his subject in a much less philosophical way, though far more extensively
than Theophrastus. In the rambling discursive
manner which characterizes throughout his valuable, but ill-digested compilation, he treats of
metals in two books, the 33d and 34th; of
earths in the 35th; of stones in the 36th; and
in the 37th and last of gems. Under which
last division would have fallen, probably, most




14    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
of the specimens that are found in modern
cabinets.
Pliny observes that new gems, which are
without name, occur from time to time. A remark that might have been made with truth at
any period of the world, if by the word gem we
understand, as Pliny did, a hard mineral substance, whether crystallized or not, occurring in
small quantity, and fit to be engraved for ringstones. Every year, almost, brings to light new
mineral combinations, or new varieties of minerals already known. And we find that almost
every province of considerable extent possesses
minerals peculiar to itself. With many of these,
no doubt, the ancients were unacquainted; but,
on the other hand, they must have known many
which modern mineralogists do not; the localities whence they were obtained having been
long since exhausted, and no specimens having
survived through such a lapse of time. Ancient cabinets may have contained full as great
a variety as we see in modern collections; for
Pliny, after specifying a great number of minerals, gives us to understand that they form but
a small portion of those he could have named,
and he adds a remark which might be made
with equal truth of modern catalogues of min



ANCIENT MINERALOGY.    15
erals; that the same substance is often called
by different names, in consequence of slight
difference in some external characters.
Besides Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny,
there are many ancient authors from whom
occasionally something may be gathered respecting minerals. Historians and geographers
find occasion to speak of them as occurring in
countries they describe. Physicians prescribe
them as remediate. Vitruvius mentions a
considerable number as used in the construction or decoration of buildings. There are,
moreover, works, both prose and verse, that
treat expressly of minerals, and might not improperly be styled ancient, but which, falling
below the age of Pliny, are beyond the limits
to which our remarks will for the most part be
confined.
One of the most remarkable pieces transmitted to us from antiquity, connected with our
subject, is a poem consisting of near eight hundred Greek hexameters, bearing the name of
Orpheus as its author, and in fact regarded not
very long ago, even by learned critics, as the
production of that bard so celebrated in Grecian
fable; but the severity of modern criticism has
disallowed its claim to such high antiquity, and




16    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
left us in great uncertainty both as to its author and its date. Its chief object is to teach
the mystical and healing virtues of about thirty
different precious stones or mineral substances,
and, due allowance being made for the poetical
ornaments of thought and diction with which
the subject matter is invested, it is treated in
much the same way as by Pliny and other ancient naturalists.  That is to say, together with
some obvious characters and true properties of
the mineral described, we have idle fancies and
superstitious notions as to its virtues in the cure
or prevention of disorders, in guarding against
or healing the bite of serpents, in averting misfortune, propitiating the favor of the gods, and
conciliating the good-will of mei. This being
a too common character of ancient works on
natural science, the belles-lettres scholar, unable amid so much that is false or frivolous to
discern the truths which sometimes lie hid under various disguises, often throws aside with
disgust a volume in which the scientific reader
may detect curious and useful facts.
It is proposed to make Pliny the basis of the
following remarks, and, without confining ourselves very closely to his order, to combine in
a sort of commentary upon the mineralogical




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    17
portion of his last five books whatever in Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and others shall appear
to deserve notice as connected with our subject.
But before we enter on this more methodical
examination of minerals known to Pliny, at a
period comparatively recent, let us consider
briefly and apart those mentioned in the Bible.
OF MINERAL SUBSTANCES MENTIONED IN
THE BIBLE.
The design of the sacred Scriptures was not
to teach us natural science, but to make us
wise unto salvation; accordingly, and in consistence with the simplicity of those early times
to which the books of the Old Testament relate, we find in them few indications of any acquaintance with minerals other than six metals
and various precious stones.
Besides these, indeed, the mineral substances
mentioned in the Bible amount in number to
no more than nine, which are marble, alabaster,
lime, flint, brimstone, amber, vermilion, nitre,
and salt. To these we should perhaps add two
others, the one bdellium, mention of which
twice occurs,' and as to the nature of which inGen., ii., 12; Numb., xi:, 7.
B




18   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
terpreters are wholly at a loss;1 the other bitumen, for a word in the sixteenth chapter of
Genesis, translated ptch, and twice afterward
in the same book slime, is thought by the learned to signify not the vegetable substance, but
mineral pitch, a species of bitumen.
The only metals spoken of in Scripture as
known previous to the Deluge are copper and
iron, besides which we find mentioned in the
Bible gold, silver, tin, and lead.  Ores of two
other metals appear to have been employed as
pigments from the earliest times; the one a
sulphuret of mercury, which furnished a native
vermilion, the other a sulphuret of antimony,
from which was prepared a black paint, frequently used by women in the East, even at
this day, to improve the beauty of the eye by
heightening its lustre and increasing its apparent size.2
In the short list just now given of mineral
substances mentioned in the Bible there are
I The Septuagint renders it carbuncle (Jivopaa) in one and
crystal in the other of these two passages. It is thought
by some commentators to have been pearl, by others beryl,
and by others again the gum-resin still called by the same
name.
2 Hence was derived one of the names (7r~arv0'OaXuzov)
given to this pigment.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    19
four only that require at present farther notice.
These are alabaster, amber, salt, and nitre.
The alabaster of the ancients was not the substance now usually designated by that name,
and used to form small figures, vases, and other
ornaments, which is a granular or compact gypsum: that of the ancients was more commonly
a stalagmitic carbonate of lime. The name
was applied both to the material and to the vess:els made of it, for the purpose commonly of
preserving unguents and odoriferous liquids.
This is the use to which Pliny speaks of it as
peculiarly adapted, and we find it mentioned in
the New Testament as so employed.
As to the word which in Ezekiel, i., 4, 27,
and viii., 2, is translated amber, commentators
are in doubt, but seem generally inclined to
think that the alloy of gold and silver hereafter
to be spoken of, called by the Greeks, as amber
was, /iXKcrpov, was, rather than amber, the substance to the color of which the prophet in
these passages alludes.
Table salt is a mineral with which all are
familiarly acquainted, but a knowledge of the
characters of that spoken of in the New Testament may throw light upon the text in which
our Lord's disciples are compared to the salt




20    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
of the earth, which, if it lose its savor, is cast
out and trodden under foot. The salt alluded
to was probably fossil salt, which occurred
abundantly in various places,' and which containing, as such salt generally does, a large proportion of ochrey clay or other earthy matter,
was liable from exposure to become insipid.
Accordingly, Maundrell, in his Journey to Jerusalem, tells us that in the Valley of Salt, on
the side toward Gibul, from a small precipice,
formed by the continual taking away of the
salt, he broke out a piece, of which the part
that had been exposed to the sun, rain, and air,
though it contained sparks and particles of salt,
had entirely lost its savor, while that part next
the rock still retained, as he found, its saltness.2
Salt which had thus become insipid might be
used for the purpose of repairing roads, or cast
out to be trodden underfoot.
The nitre repeatedly mentioned in Scripture
was not our nitre, or saltpetre; but an impure carbonate of soda, procured from certain
lakes in Egypt, which, as appears from recent
accounts, still furnish it in great abundance.
These lakes, six in number, lie west of the DelSee Herod., iv., 185; Maundrell and other travelers in
Syria.              2 MIaundrell's Journey, p. 214.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    21
ta of the Nile, and are called the Lakes of Natron. Hence the Greeks and Romans derived
the names viTrov, nitrum; which the Latins, as
we shall hereafter see, applied, not to natron
only, but to a considerable variety of substances
containing more or less alkaline salts;' and,
according to the opinion of some mineralogists,
to two other wholly different compounds, chlorid of ammonium, or sal ammoniac, and nitrate
of potash, or saltpetre; to which last only is
the name now confined.2
The natron, or ancient nitre, was used for
the purpose to which we continue to apply the
same alkali when combined with oils, in the
form of soap. The prophet Jeremiah, therefore, speaks3 of one washing himself with nitre.
And the violent action which ensues the pouring of an acid on an alkali suggested to Solomon
his comparison between one " that singeth songs
to a heavy heart" and vinegar upon nitre.4
When vinegar and the salt which we call nitre
are brought together there is no apparent discrepance between them'; but pour vinegar on
1 Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxi., 46. Beckmann's Hist. of Inv.,
iv., 525.
2 Kidd's Min., ii., 6. Jameson's Min., ii., 316.
3 Jeremiah, ii., 22.  4 Prov., xxv., 20.




22   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
the nitre of Scripture, and there follows an effervescence, that shows the propriety of the
royal penman's simile.l
OF GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES MENTIONED
IN THE BIBLE.
Let us now turn our attention to those valued productions of the mineral kingdom, which
furnish the sacred writers with so many images
to express beauty, magnificence, purity, solidity, and strength. As when Isaiah, foretelling
the future greatness of Jerusalem, says, " Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and
lay thy foundation with sapphires; and I will
make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of
carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant
stones."2  The gems mentioned here and elsewhere in the Bible, we have reason to believe,
weire, collectively taken, the same which the
East continues still to furnish in their highest
perfection; but it is impossible at this day to
ascertain the species of each individual stone.
Respecting the ancient use of nitrum in washing, see
Beck., Hist. of Inv., iii., 2, 31, and Foes. in CEcon. Hippoc.,
p. 432. As to ancient virrov generally, see Coray in Hippoc. de Aere, Aqua, et Locis, vol. ii., 109, seq.
2 Isaiah, liv., 12.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    23
What in our version of the above passage is
translated agate and by the Seventy jasper, Mr.
Harris would call talc, while Bishop Lowth and
Mr. Dobson would make it ruby. Where the
name is evidently the same in the ancient languages and now, while the characters ascribed
by ancients and moderns to the stone agree, we
can not be in doubt; but as to others, again, a
comparison of circumstances makes it evident
that the ancient name, retained by us, is no
longer applied to the same substance. Thus it
may be inferred that the ancient chrysolite was
either a deep-colored variety of the oriental
topaz, or the gem by us called hyacinth; while
the topaz of the ancients was the stone which
we call chrysolite?'
Learned critics generally agree that the diamond was not known in the time of Moses.
The word translated diamond in the description
of the breastplate signifies, as is thought, a
stone hard to break, or used in breaking others;
a description applicable to many oriental gems.
Another word (schmir) which, in Jeremiah xvii.,
1, is rendered diamond, in Ezek. iii., 9, Zech.
vii., 12, and Eccles. xvi., 16, is translated adamant. It signifies a very hard stone. The
I See afterward the article Topaz.




24  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
diamond was known at a later period among the
ancients, and possessed a high value, but derived chiefly from its extreme rarity and unrivaled hardness. It was a gem of no extraordinary brilliancy nor beauty, since to display
these qualities it must be cut and polished, and
that art was not discovered until near the end
of the 15th century.l
The frequent allusion made by the sacred
writers to precious stones, as objects of comparison, or otherwise, may have been owing in
part to their dwelling in countries near to those
whence, chiefly, the most precious gems have
always been obtained, and in which we may
suppose them to have been less rare in those
early ages than at the present day; and therefore to have furnished more familiar images of
those natural qualities for which they are admired. And it is for this purpose only, of ornament and illustration, as learned commentators
think, that their names are introduced.  For
1 The art of cutting and polishing the diamond was discovered in Europe by Lewis Berghem, in 1456; but some
have thought it known to the artists of Hindostan and China
at a very early period (Jam. Min., i., 9). Lessing, however, an acute and skillful antiquary, takes certain pretended
antique cut diamonds to be sapphires. (See Brong., Tr.
Elem. de Min., ii., 61, and Goquet, Orig. des Loix, ii., 111.)




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  25
although pagan antiquity ascribed various mystical virtues to certain precious stones, it is not
intended that those mentioned in Scripture
should be " strictly scrutinized or minutely and
particularly explained as if they had each of
them some precise and spiritual meaning."
It ought not to escape our notice, while upon
this subject, that at the early period of the Exodus the art of polishing, setting, and even engraving precious stones was, as we learn from
the description of the ephod and breastplate,
already known and practiced. It is true that
to engrave merely the names of the children of
Israel there was not required the same degree
of skill that we find afterward displayed among
the Greeks, but the principles of the art and
the means of execution were probably the same.
And this may suggest an illustration of the difference between ancients and moderns, both as
to art and science; for in regard to gems, as to
other matters, it may be said that the ancients
possessed less science, but very superior art.
They were wholly ignorant of the chemical
composition of these stones, but engraved them
with a consummate taste and skill that have
been rarely, if ever, equaled in modern times.
The ancients, regarding the external charac



26    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
ters alone, and especially the color, distinguished, as was natural, by different names the sapphire, the ruby, the emerald, the topaz, and
other Oriental stones, which now the mineralogist, determined by the results of analysis,
classes together, as belonging all of them to a
single species. One who in ancient times possessed a colorless sapphire and a polished diamond (if the ancients had been acquainted with
any such) might, from their resemblance in
transparency, lustre, superior weight, and hardness, have been led to place them among his
treasures side by side, while the modern, in arranging his cabinet according to the true composition of minerals, would degrade the diamond
from the brilliant society in which it has been
used to shine, to take its place with plumbago,
anthracite, and coal. To pursue this speculation farther: the artist who from a rude mass
of Parian marble produced the Venus de' Medici, and he who converted a shapeless block of
Lunensian marble into that form of superhuman dignity and grace, the Belvidere Apollo,
knew little about the nature of the stone they
chiseled, and might not easily have been brought
to believe that of the solid substance upon
which they wrought nearly one half the weight




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.   27
was an aerial acid. Ictinus, too, when he built
the Parthenon, and Phidias while he adorned
it with his sculpture (although the latter is said
to have possessed all the science of the age he
lived in), were alike ignorant of the nature of
the materials they employed; but this their
ignorance did not prevent the statuaries and
the architect from executing works which have
defied the competition of all succeeding time.
OF METALS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.
From writings in which the mention of mineral substances is rare and incidental, and from
which it is by inference only that we can gather any thing respecting their character or properties, let us now turn to authors who treat of
them expressly, and, adopting for the most part
Pliny's order, consider first the metals with
which the Greeks and Romans were acquainted. These were the six already mentioned as
known to the writers of the Old Testament,
and, in addition to them, mercury, which is first
spoken of by Aristotle and Theophrastus under
the name of fluid silver (Ea'yveoc xvros). Its
nature, however, does not seem to have been
much understood even four centuries later, for
Pliny distinguishes between quicksilver, ar



28    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
gentum vivum, and the liquid silver, hydrargyrus, procured by processes which he describes
from minium, or native cinnabar.  This hydrargyrus he supposes to be a spurious imitation of quicksilver, and fraudulent substitute
for it in various uses to which it was applied.l
We shall hereafter find reason for believing
that the ancients had seen zinc and antimony
in their metallic form; and it is probable they
occasionally met with arsenic, bismuth, and
other of the now known metals which occur in
a native state, but confounded them with some
one of th& seven with which they were more
familiar.  They were well acquainted with
zinc, arsenic, and antimony in certain of their
combinations, but as reguli, or pure metals, it
was by the alchemists that these three were
first distinctly recognized. There has been,
however, no great difference between ancients
and moderns as to the state of knowledge on
this head until within a period comparatively
late; for although there are now, including the
metallic bases of the earths, above forty metals
ascertained, yet all of them, except bismuth
and the ten already mentioned, have been discovered within the last hundred years.
I H. N.. xxxiii.. 8.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.    29
OF GOLD.
Gold, the metal which ranks highest in the
estimation of mankind, was probably one of the
first, if not the first, with which they were acquainted. It was found in a native state in almost every country of the ancient world, and
abounded in the sands of many ancient rivers
which have long since ceased to be auriferous.
Such was the case with the Pactolus even in
Strabo's time,' though at a more ancient period
it had been proverbial for its golden sands.
Nor are the Tagus, the Po, the Hebrus, and
the Ganges any longer celebrated upon this
account, as they once were; whence it seems
reasonable to infer that in proportion as we go
back into remote antiquity we may regard this
source of supply as having been abundant.
From the facility with which this gold, than
which, as Pliny observes, there is none purer,
was to be obtained, even in the earliest stages
of society, we may account in part for the prodigious quantity on some occasions spoken of
by ancient authors, as in the account given of
the wealth of Solomon;2 in the description we
Strabo, Geog., p. 626.
1 Kings, vi., 20-22; x., 14-21.




30    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
find in Diodorus Siculus of the tomb of King
Osymandyas,l and of the statues, tables, and
vessels of gold dedicated by Semiramis;2 in
Herodotus's account of the wealth of Croesus,
and his presents to the oracle of Delphi, as also
of the tribute paid to Darius Hystaspes by the
several provinces of his empire.3
But this apparent abundance of gold is also
to be explained in part from the fact of its having been accumulated at certain periods chiefly
in some one place, as at Babylon, under Semiramis; at Jerusalem, under Solomon; at Sardis, under Croesus; at Babylon again, under
Darius, and afterward until the death of Alexander; at Alexandria, perhaps more than elsewhere, under his successors;4 and afterward at
Rome while she was at the summit of her
power. Gold, too, having been used in the
earlier ages almost solely for purposes of ornament, rather than as a medium of exchange,
was therefore less likely to be either hoarded
in the shape of money, or widely scattered
through a multitude of hands. Copper having
been found anciently in a native state, as well
Diod. Sic., i., 49.        2 Ibid., ii., 9.
Herod., lib. i., c. 56, seq., 92; lib. iii., c. 90, seq.
4 See Athen. Deipn., lib. v., c. 27-36.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  31
as gold, and sometimes in great abundance even
on the surface of the ground, we hear of ancient
nations using no other metals than these two.
Thus we are told by Herodotus1 that the Massagetae use copper for their spears and other
weapons of offense, gold for the ornaments of
their persons; copper for the breastplates of
their horses, but, for the ornaments of their
reins, their bits, and their trappings, gold. Of
iron and silver, he says, they make no use, nor
are these metals found in their country, but
copper and gold in very great abundance. He
speaks of the North of Europe as especially
abounding in gold,2 and of the Scythians burying with the bodies of their kings vessels of
gold, but making no use of copper or of silver.3
The first mention of gold and silver is where
Abraham is described as " very rich in cattle,
in silver, and in gold." The earliest mention
of these metals as applied to any use is in rela9
tion to the ornaments which Abraham's servant
presented to Rebekah, "earrings, bracelets,
jewels of silver and of gold."  And Pharaoh
is spoken of in the same book as putting a gold
chain about Joseph's neck; so that we find
the most ancient uses of gold were much the
I Lib. i., c. 215.   2 Lib. iii., c. 116.   3 Lib. iv., c. 71.




32    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
same with those to which it still continues to
be applied. But it is spoken of throughout
the Bible and Homer, the most ancient books
sacred and profane, as employed for a vast variety of purposes, useful as well as ornamental;
and, however abundant it may have been at
times, seems always to have been regarded as
what Pindar styles it,' "a conspicuous ornament of lordly wealth." It was sometimes anciently, as it now is, applied to uses in the arts
for which it was peculiarly fitted by its incorruptibility. Thus we find that it was used,
even at Rome, and above three hundred years
before the Christian era, for securing in their
places artificial teeth-a law of the twelve tables making an exception as regards such gold,
and permitting it to be buried together with
the dead.2
Among the uses to which gold was anciently
applied, it may deserve mention that a tissue
was sometimes made of it without admixture
of any other substance. Pliny says3 he had
seen Agrippina, wife of Claudius, seated at his
side during the exhibition of a naval combat,
clothed in a robe of gold woven without other
1 1 Olym., 4.         2 Cic., de Leg., ii., 24.
3 H. N., xxxiii., i9.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  33
material. Dion Cassius speaks of the same occasion, when Agrippina was, according to him,
arrayed in a cloak of gold (XXayvtL &laXpv.icrl
EKo7aULTro). Lampridius, in his Life of Heliogabalus, mentions a tunic of the same kind
worn by him,' and Sidonius Apollinaris alludes
to the mode of weaving such cloth of gold.2
Though it is probable the auriferous sands of
rivers and alluvial plains furnished anciently, as
perhaps they do still, the greatest quantity of
gold, yet there were mines worked at a very
early period. Cadmus is said to have opened
the first mine of copper and gold in Mount
Pangoeum;3 the same region from which, eleven
hundred years later, Philip of Macedon derived
the treasures which enabled him to prosecute
successfully his ambitious schemes. The Pharaohs drew great quantities of gold from mines
situated on the borders of Egypt and Ethiopia,
between the Nile and the Red Sea. The processes by which it was obtained, as described
by Diodorus,4 are to be seen represented in
paintings executed in the reign of Osirtasen I.,
Aldi edit., fo. 112.   2 Carm. xxii., v. 119.
3 Strabo, p. 998.
4 Diod. Sic., lib. iii., c. 12, 13, 14, and the original source
in Photii Biblioth., c. 1339.
C




34    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
seventeen centuries before the Christian era.
It appears that mines of copper and of gold
were worked in Siberia at a very remote period by some people unacquainted with the use
of iron tools.' These mines, which are on the
southern and eastern borders of the Ural Mountains, and have been examined of late years by
Gmelin, Lepechin, and Pallas, were probably
among the sources whence those Scythians of
whom Herodotus makes mention drew their
gold.
There were in Thasos, and other Greek islands, very ancient gold mines, originally opened
by the Phoenicians. Herodotus tells us he had
himself seen these Phoenician mines of Thasos,
and that a great mountain had been overturned
there in searching for the metal.2
Spain also contained rich mines of gold; and
an ancient city of its Atlantic coast, Tartessus,
is thought by Bochart to have been the Tarshish
of Scripture.3  Strabo declares4 that no country in the world produced gold, silver, copper,
and iron in so great abundance, and of so good
a quality, as that part of Spain called Turdita1 Jacob's Hist. of the Precious Metals, c. 2.
2 Lib. vi., c. 47.  Geog. Sacra, iii., 7, col. 170.
i Geog., p. 146.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    35
nia, and its neighborhood; and Pliny observes'
that the barren mountains of this country, which
yielded nothing else, were rich in gold. The
same author speaks of gold mines in the territory of Vercellma, in Italy, in which to employ
more than five thousand men was expressly
prohibited by law.2 Diodorus Siculus mentions
Arabia as producing the finest native gold
(XpVcbs a7rvpoc), in pieces about the size of a
chestnut, and of so bright a color that artists
used it in setting the most precious stones to
form beautiful ornaments.3
OF SILVER.
Silver and gold, as they are generally found
associated in varying proportions, were anciently,'in many cases, gotten from the same mines.
Pliny observes that silver is derived from mines
only; that it was found in almost all the Roman provinces, but the best in Spain; and was,
like gold, obtained from a barren soil and mountains. Gaul must be excepted from the provinces that furnished silver;' for, according to
Diodorus, none was found there; but the sands
of its rivers yielded much gold.4  The mines
i H. N., xxxiii., 21.       2 Ibid.
3 Lib. ii., c. 50.          4 Lib. v., c. 27.




36    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
opened in Spain by Hannibal, certain of which
had yielded him three hundred pounds of silver
daily, were in Pliny's time not yet exhausted,
and the mountain that contained them had been
excavated to the distance of a mile and a half.l
This country would appear to have been among
the principal sources of this metal; and, perhaps, hence chiefly even the East may have
drawn its supplies. But many other countries
furnished silver besides Spain; Egypt in enormous quantity, if the account of Diodorus (i.,
49) is to be received; and while upon this subject it would not be right to omit all mention of
that " fountain of silver, treasure of the earth,"
which IEschylus says2 the Athenians possessed.
The mines of Laurium, to which he alludes,
were probably more productive about this time
than at any period before or since. They do
not appear to have been at any period very profitable, as compared with those of other countries, and though they continued for many centuries to employ great numbers of men, they,
during a great portion of the time, scarcely
defrayed the expenses of working them. Strabo speaks of them as originally valuable, but in
his time exhausted.3
H. N., xxxiii., 31.  2 2Eschyl., Pers., v. 238.
Geog., p. 399, where see Casaubon. These mines are




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  37
Silver and gold are spoken of together on occasion of the presents, before alluded to, brought
by Abraham's servant to Rebekah, " jewels of
silver and jewels of gold;" but a mention of
silver, as applied to use, occurs in the preceding
chapter, where Ephron values his field at four
hundred skekels of silver, which are weighed to
him  by Abraham, and styled current with the
merchants, that is, probably, of the due fineness. From this passage, as also from that in
which Joseph's brothers are said to have sold
him for twenty pieces of silver;1 from their taking with them silver on both occasions of their
going into Egypt to buy corn; and from Joseph's accumulating all the silver of Egypt and
of Canaan in exchange for corn,2 we may infer
that at a very early period silver, though not
coined, was a usual medium of exchange. This
was a use to which gold does not appear to have
mentioned by Herodotus, Thucydides, Pausanias, and others; and Xenophon wrote his treatise repti rpoao6wv, or on the
revenues of Attica, to encourage the Athenians to work them.
They seem to have been sufficiently valuable to be coveted
by Philip, as from various passages in Demosthenes appears.
1 Gen., xxxvii., 28. Here the Septuagint has tiroac XpvUav, twenty pieces of gold.
2 Gen., xxxvii., 14. In all these passages the Septuagint
has silver; but in our Bible the word used is money.




38   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
been so soon applied, though in other respects
the two metals were employed for like purposes. We find drinking-vessels, statues, idols,
altars, ornaments of temples, houses, and the
person, made sometimes of one, sometimes of
the other metal; and, in the same ornament, or
article of furniture, frequently the two combined.1 Mirrors in Pliny's time were commonly of silver.  He says the best had been those
manufactured at Brundisium, of a mixture of
tin and copper,2 until even the female slaves
began to use them made of silver. It seems
they were sometimes of this metal as early as
when Plautus wrote;3 and Seneca speaks of
them in his time as being made "of the full
length of the body, of silver and of gold, carved
and adorned with precious stones."4
OF ELECTRUM.
Electrum, a native alloy of gold and silver, is
a compound of which the ancients sometimes
speak as though it were a simple substance, for
the reason, probably, that they were unable
Homrn., Od., 6., v. 125; 1., v. 89. 2 H. N., xxxiii., 45.
3 Plaut., Mostell., i., 3, 111.
4 " Totis paria corporibus, auro argentoque ccelata, gemmis adornata. " —Sen., Nat. Qucest., i., 17.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  39
readily to separate the metals of which it was
composed.
Pliny, having observed that all gold contains
more or less of silver, adds that when the silver
is in the proportion of one fifth the alloy is
called electrum, which, he says, is also artificially compounded, silver being added to gold in
the required proportion.' He understands Homer as meaning this alloy where  jXEKcrpov is
mentioned in the description of the palace of
Menelaus;2 but Eustathius thinks that in this
passage amber is the substance meant.3
Klaproth has applied the name electrum to
argentiferous native gold, to which, as we have
seen, it anciently belonged, when the silver
was in the above-mentioned proportion of one
fifth.4
H. N., ix., 108.           2 Hom., Od., a., v. 73.
3 Dr. Clarke (Trav., vol. viii., p. 231) describes a coin of
Rhescuporis, a Thracian prince, made of this alloy, and
takes occasion to point out the error into which several authors have fallen as to passages in ancient writers, in which
the alloy and not amber is intended.
4 Sophocles, though he styles the Pactolus EiVXpvaov (Phil.,
v. 393), elsewhere (Antig., v. 1037) speaks of the electrum
of Sardis together with the gold of India, from which it
might be inferred that the gold of the Pactolus (on which
Sardis stood) was argentiferous, contained a sufficient proportion of silver to cause it to be denominated XEICrpov.




40    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
OF IRON AND COPPER.
From the two more precious metals, gold and
silver, we come next to two which possess a
much greater value in use than in exchange;
and which, in the times we now treat of, stood
in such close relation to each other that we shall
find it convenient to consider them, in some
measure, under the same head.
Iron, as well as copper, was in use before the
Deluge; for Tubal-cain, we are told, was " an
instructor of every artificer in brass and iron."'
It is not probable that a knowledge of such
useful auxiliaries, once acquired by man, would
ever have been lost. 2Eschylus must have regarded the use of iron as exceeding ancient; for
he makes Prometheus boast of having taught it
to mankind.2
The art of working iron, therefore, and the
use of weapons and other things made of it, appears to have been known. among the Egyptians at a very early period; and Moses was
well acquainted with this metal, though neither
by him in the construction of the tabernacle in
the wilderness, nor by Solomon afterward in
the building of the temple, does it appear to
have been employed.
1 Gen., iv., 22.        2 Prom. V., v. 502.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  41
Moses compares the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage to their being
" brought forth out of the iron furnace."' He
uses the terms iron and brass indifferently, in
a figurative sense, as emblematic of something
stern and hard: "I will make your heaven as
iron, and your earth as brass;-12 and elsewhere,
" Thy heaven that is over thy head shall be
brass,.and the earth that is under thee shall be
iron."3  He mentions "a yoke of iron," also, in
a figurative sense. We are told that the bedstead df Og, King of Bashan, " was a bedstead
of iron."4  Mines of iron are spoken of;5 and
it appears that hostile weapons, and tools for,
cutting stone, were sometimes made of iron.6
However, during times of high antiquity, brass
or copper was much more used than iron, especially among nations that had made little progress in the arts. Hesiod speaks of iron as, during the brazen age, unknown: "Their weapons, dwellings, tools, were all of brass."7
1 Deut., iv., 20.            2 Levit., xxvi., 19.
3 Deut., xxviii., 23.        4 Deut., iii., 11.
D5 eut., viii., 9.   6 Num., xxxv., 16; Deut., xxvii., 5.
7 Hesiod, fpy. Kcati /ju., v. 150. Lucretius, too, says, lib.
v;, v. 1286,
" Et prior aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus."
It may perhaps be worthy of remark that the'sleep of




42    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
The reason of this is obvious. Iron is not
found in a native or metallic state, except in
aerolites, and the skill in metallurgy was often
insufficient to reduce it from its ore, and work
it; but native copper is occasionally found in
almost every country, and sometimes in large
masses even on the surface of the earth; and
this metal and its alloys may be worked with
much greater ease.' Accordingly, uncivilized
tribes have been discovered, on the northwest
coast of America and elsewhere, making use of
copper implements; and it is with good reason
that Werner conjectures it was the first metal
worked by man. Axes and other instruments
of bronze have been found in tombs of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and Peru; and
from the latter country Humboldt took a chisel, which YVauquelin. iscertained to consist of.94
of copper and.06 of tin. This alloy was so
well forged that it had a specific gravity of
8.815, a maximum of density which, according
to the experiments of Mr. Briche, a chemist
does not obtain but by a mixture of 16 parts
of tin with 100 of copper.
death, which Homer (II., xi., 241) calls XdXacEov virvov, Virgil, writing at a period when iron was more familiarly known,
styles ferreus somnus (ZEn., x., 745).
l See Goguet, Orig. des Loix, etc., t. i., p. 141.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    43
Brass was a very indefinite term among the
ancients, the simple metal copper, and all the
different compounds into which it entered as a
principal ingredient, being comprehended under the same name, XaXKao), Tes  When, therefore, in Scripture and in ancient authors generally, brass is spoken of, we are seldom to understand the alloy now designated by that
name, although that is sometimes meant; but
the brass tempered for edge-tools, or formed
into warlike weapons, was generally a compound of copper and of tin; and the proportion
between the two metals seems to have been, in
many cases, nearly that just now stated as affording the maximum of density. The bronze
of an ancient Grecian helmet was found, on
analysis, to be copper alloyed with 18.5 per
cent. of tin.' An ancient dagger, analyzed by
Hielm, was found to contain about five parts of
copper and one of tin; and other analyses of
ancient weapons, found in countries widely distant from each other, have afforded much the
same result.2 The same metals, combined in
Phil. Trans., 1826, part ii., p. 55.
2 See Ure's Chem. Diet., art. Copper. The nearly identical result obtained in such a diversity of cases favors the
belief that this ancient brass was a native alloy, procured




44   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
various proportions, are still applied to many
important uses; and sometimes to mould brazen cannon, those more formidable instruments
of modern war. Dr. Clarke gives the results
of several analyses of ancient bronze, and observes that the constituent metals, copper and
tin, are in every case nearly the same; but he
makes the proportion of tin to be only 12 per
cent. 
It is probable that, in remote antiquity, copper was oftener employed than any alloy of it.
Indeed, there still remain both warlike weapons and artisans' tools made of the simple metal. From Homer's saying that the spear of
from long since exhausted sources of an ore in which, as in
the bell-metal ore of Cornwall, tin and copper were united,
and in the proportions requisite to give the compound its
greatest density and hardness; and this may be that brass
of which Pliny speaks (xxxiv., 2) as in his time no longer
found, the mines that once furnished it having become exhausted. If such a native alloy was found in Etruria, as
some have thought, that circumstance might help to account
for the early civilization and the wealth of that country.
One of the earliest trading voyages that we read of-that of
Mentes in the Odyssey-is represented as having for its object to exchange iron for bronze at a port of Italy, Temese
or Brundisium.  A native alloy of bronze, or a mineral furnishing such, is said to have been found in Mexico, where
instruments of the above composition have been obtained.
1 Travels, vol. vi., p. 505; vol. v., p. 292.




A NCIENT MINERALOGY.    45
Iphidamas did not pierce the girdle of Agamemnon, but that "its point was turned as
though it had been lead when it struck upon
the silver,"' we may fairly infer that the spearhead was copper rather than any hard alloy of
it. In the ancient mines of Siberia, which have
lately been examined, hammers and wedges of
copper have been found.2  There is reason,
therefore, to suppose that the words xaXKcsq and
ces should be rendered by the word copper much
oftener than they are.
Pliny distinguishes copper as mes Cypriumbrass of Cyprus-in which island, he informs us,
it was first discovered; but he gives the name
ces to the alloys of copper, not with zinc only,
but with gold, silver, tin, and lead, with all
which metals it was mixed, and in different
proportions, according to the color or other
qualities required in the compound, or the uses
to which it was to be applied. Among the
rest, Pliny specifies three varieties of Corinthian brass, more precious, he remarks, than silver, nay, almost preferred even to gold itself.
Some of the most valued productions of ancient art, were in brass of Delos and }Egina,
1 Hom., II., X., v. 236.
2 Jacobs's Hist. of the Prec. Met., p. 27.




46    ANCIENT MIN E RALOGT.
those two islands having been celebrated for
their manufacture of a material well suited for
the statuary. Myron used the brass of Delos,
and Polycletus that of ~Egina.'
Pliny gives for statuary brass a recipe, according to which there is added to the melted
copper one third part of old brass, worn, and
polished by use (ues collectaneum);:with twelve
and a half per centum of an alloy called plumbum argentarium, which consisted of equal
parts of lead' and tin.2
Aristotle informs us that the Mossyncecians
had anciently prepared a brass of a pale color
and superior lustre, mixing it, not with tin, but
with a certain earth found among them.3  This
earth was, no doubt, the cadmia of Pliny, our
calamine, an ore of zinc; though we have
reason to believe that Pliny has comprehended
under the term cadmia an ore of copper abounding in zinc, from which was procured the brass
called orichalcum; or mountain brass, the kind
most highly valued; but the mines of orichalcum becoming exhausted, as we find that in
Pliny's time they were,4 an imitation of the naH. N., xxxiv., 4, 5.     2 Ibid., xxxiv., 48.
3 Arist., Op., v. i., p. 1155, B. " Cadmia terra, qume in es
conjicitur ut fiat orichalcum.". —Festus, de Verb. Sig.
4 H. N., xxxiv., 2.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    47
tive alloy was produced by mixing with copper
the ore of zinc called calamine.l Keferstein
supposes,2 but perverts the language of Aristotle to favor his idea, that the Mossyncecian
brass was white copper, an alloy of copper and
arsenic. That the ancients, however, were acquainted with and made use of a white copper
is undoubted, for in the Herculanean Museum
there are paterae and other articles made of such
alloy;3 and perhaps the ces candidum mentioned by Pliny as used together with copper and
tin in making mirrors4 may have been obtained
from copper ores that abounded in arsenic,
which now also enters into the composition of
speculum metal. The ces candidum spoken of
as one variety of the Corinthian brass seems to
have owed its color to the large quantity of silver it contained. When Virgil speaks of a
cuirass, "auro squalentem alboque orichalco,"the epithet, as Cerda and others think, indicates
I This was our brass (Watson's Chem. Ess., iv., 85), and
should be distinguished from the more ancient bronze, "the
old chemical compound of copper and tin;" for of this also
Dr. Clarke supposes some ancient native alloy to have existed.-Clarke's Trav., vol. vii., pref., p. xxiii.
2 Phil. Mag., vol. lxiii., p. 126.' Winck., Mon. Ant. Ined., vol. ii., p. 172.
4 H. N., xxxiv., 48.




48   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
merely the splendor of the brass, as Hesiod and
Apollonius Rhodius speak  PE1XaoXK10o OaEtvov.
That orichalcum was of the color of our brass
may be inferred from the case which Cicero
supposes of a man ignorantly selling gold by
mistake for it.'
The uses to which copper and its alloys were
applied are far too numerous to admit of being
specified.   The mechanics' tools, implements
of agriculture, weapons and defensive armor,
useful and ornamental articles of household furniture, coined money, statues, in some cases
doors, columns, and even roofs were made of
brass.2  With the advance of society and the
improvement of the arts of life in modern times,
we find the use of iron continually extended,
and the purposes to which it is applied daily
more and more diversified. In proportion as
we go back into antiquity we find its use more
rare, and its place supplied by other metals;
thus nails and bolts were made of brass,3 and the
Cic., de Off., iii., 23.
2 Plin., H. N., xxxiv., 7. Respecting the abundance of
brass in the earlier times of Rome, and the probable sources
of it, there are some remarks in Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome,
vol. i., p. 451.
3 Dioscor., v., 88; Athencei Deipnos, v., 40; Gell's Argolis, p. 29.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  49
anchors of the Phoenicians were of lead.' The
Romans, however, used iron, for purposes both
of war and peace, at least as early as the sixth
century before the Christian era; for Pliny
speaks of a stipulation in the treaty made with
them by Porsenna which prohibited their use
of iron except in the cultivation of the soil.2
In the Trojan age, and in Homer's time, iron
was well known; and the poet employs, as Moses does, the names of iron and brass in both a
literal and a figurative sense, as though the two
metals were applied indifferently to the same
purposes, whether of war or peace, and regarded as possessing in like manner the' properties
of hardness and tenacity. Iron, however, was
used much more sparingly than brass, being,
for the reasons no doubt that have been stated,
much the rarer of the two. Accordingly we
find that a rudely-cast round mass of iron (ao'Xoc avroXowvoc), which had been used by E6tion as a quoit, is represented by Achilles, when
he offers it among the prizes at Patroclus's funeral, as "C a five years' provision of iron for one
1 Diod. Sic., v., 35.
2 H. N., xxxiv., 39. If Etruria derived advantage from
its trade in bronze, this stipulation may have been merely
with a view to commercial profit.
D




50  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
who cultivates extensive and rich fields, so that
his shepherd or his plowman, when they need
iron, may, without going to the city for it, satisfy their wants."' Hence we learn that it was
used, though in very small quantity, for implements of agriculture.  This passage, certainly
the most remarkable one in which iron is
spoken of in Homer, is sometimes referred to
as though it were the only one, but most incorrectly, as we shall perceive. It is mentioned
as an article of commerce where Mentes tells
Telemachus that he has iron which he is going
to exchange at Temese for copper.2  Axes
were sometimes made of iron. A chariotbuilder is spoken of as felling a tree a7'Owvt aLWnpp.3 Those axes through which the suitors
were to shoot, often as they are spoken of, are
always called iron (irfnpos) or polished iron
(7roXLoc ato'lpo).4 Weapons of war were sometimes made of it. The iron weapon is said to
invite men, that is, to tempt them, to violence.5
Antilochus holds the hands of Achilles, lest he
should cut his own throat acy8p.6  An " iron
1 II., Al., 826.  2 Od., a., 184.  3 II., a., 485.
4 See Hornm., Od., a., 587; f., 3, 81, 97, 114, 127, 328;
o., 167.   5 Od., r., 294; r., 13.    6 II., a., 34.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  51
arrow - head" is mentioned,' and Areithous
breaks the phalanxes with " an iron club."2
We find both brass and iron mentioned in
the same passage or description. Iris, preparing the chariot of Juno, places the wheels of
brass on the iron axle (I1., E., 723). The gates
of hell are of iron and the threshold is of brass
(In., n., 15).
The tempering of iron by plunging it into
water is alluded to.3  It is repeatedly styled
"much-labored" (7rOXVIK1nrog), and is classed
with gold and brass as a thing of value. Among
the treasures collected by Ulysses are mentioned "brass, and gold, and much-labored
iron."4   Achilles enumerates as part of his
booty, " gold, and red brass, and bright iron"
(TroXOv rE aioqpov).5  Adrastus speaks of his
father's treasures, which Menelaus should receive as ransom for his life, "brass, and gold,
and much-labored iron;"6 and the sons of Antimachus offer the same ransom to Agamemnon.7
The scarcity and value of iron in remote
ages is inferred by Mr. Jacobs from discoveries
1 II., a., 123.  2 II.,  /.,7 140.  3 Od., t., 393.
4 Od.)., 324; X., 10.         5 I., 1. 366.
6 IIZ.,, 48.                7 II., X., 133.




52    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
made of late years in the ancient Scandinavian
tumuli.  "There are swords, daggers, and
knives, the blades of which are of gold, while
an edge of iron is formed for the purpose of
cutting. Some of the tools and weapons are
formed principally of copper, with edges of
iron; and in many of the implements the profuse application of copper and of gold, when
contrasted with the parsimony evident in the
expenditure of iron, seems to prove that, at the'
unknown period, and among the unknown people who raised the tumuli which antiquarian
research has lately explored, gold as well as
copper were much more abundant products
than iron."'
The high value set upon iron in the reign of
Alyattes, the father of Crcesus, about 600 years
A.C.N., and the slight acquaintance at that
period with the working of it, may be inferred
from his dedication at Delphi of a wrought-iron
base for a bowl, the work of Glaucus -of Chios,
who first invented the welding of iron, for that
seems to be the only meaning we can give to the
words of Herodotus (i., 25), acn8pov icoXXAnpav.
But to return to Homer for a moment: he
repeatedly makes use of the term artfpooc, iron,' Jacobs's Hist. of the Prec. Met., p. 10.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    53
and the adjectives derived from it, in a figurative
sense. The iron tumult is said to reach the brazen heaven,l and the insolence and violence of
the suitors to reach the iron heaven.2  The iron
strength of fire is spoken of,3 and a resemblance
in strength al'Owvt atJ8pt.4  The bodies of the
Greeks are said not to be of stone or iron, so
as to resist the piercing brass, and Euryclea
compares herself to " firm stone or iron."6  Telemachus is told that his father will not remain
much longer absent, "even though iron chains
should hold him;"7 and he speaks of his father
as having perished, "although he had an iron
heart within him."8 Ulysses is told that he is
insensible to the sufferings of his companions,
because he himself knows not fatigue —" that
he is altogether formed of iron;-9 and Hecuba,
thinking Priam insensible to the danger he is
about to  brave, declares "he  has an  iron
heart."'~  Ulysses' eyes are said to remain as
unmoved as if they were of horn or iron."
Hesiod speaks of bronze more frequently
than of iron;12 but, like Homer, he uses in a
1 I1., p., 424.  2 Od., o., 328.    3 I., 4g., 177.
4 II., v., 372.  5 I.,., 510.    6 Od., r., 494.
7 Od., a., 204.    8 Od., a., 293.    9 Od., y., 280.
1o IT., w., 205.   74 Od.,., 211.
2 Theog., v. 722, 724, 726,? 732, 733, 749, 750.




54    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
figurative sense epithets derived from either
metal, as in Theog., v. 764:
"Toi & at cLpE) iv rc paerl, XaXkEov Si olt irop."
While speaking of ancient uses of iron, it
may be worth while to notice a curious passage
found among the fragments of Ctesias, from
which we might perhaps infer that the ancients,
400 years before the Christian era, had some
obscure notion of the use of lightning-rods.
Ctesias speaks of a fountain of India, from the
bottom of which was obtained a kind of iron,
of which he had two swords, and which was of
such a nature that, being implanted in the
ground, it averted clouds, and hail, and lightnings —T-rnyvvevos Ev ri- yp, VEov L, Kai  XaXZica, Kat 7rrqa~rTpoV Eartv atroTpo'raLos.l
The Greeks of a much later age than Homer's marked the distinction between steel and
iron by calling the former rouotua, the word
aropo'w signifying to give a temper or keen
edge to a cutting instrument.
The ancients sometimes made steel by a
process that has been employed even in modern times. The crude iron, purified by repeatPhotii Bibliotheca, p. 144, or Herod., ex edit. Gronovii,
p. G56.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    55
ed melting, and deprived of a portion of its carbon by being kept long in a state of fusion,
was converted into steel. This at least seems
to be the rationale of the mode described by
Aristotle, who says' the iron was purified from
the scoria by melting, and when it had been
treated thus several times, and became pure,
was changed to  steel (aro'Lutya).  Ancient
steel is thought to have been made in some
cases, as German steel is said to be, directly
from cast iron, merely by forging the crude
metal to a certain point.2 A mode of making
steel in use among the Celtiberi is thus described by Diodorus Siculus:3 " They bury in
the earth," says he, " forged plates of iron, and
leave them till in length of time the rust has
consumed the feebler parts of the metal, and
left the firmer, of which they make excellent
swords and other weapons, such that neither
shield, nor helmet, nor bone are able to resist
them." Plutarch4 and Suidas5 also speak of
this same excellent steel; and a similar process
is said to be still used in Japan, where the iron
I Vol. i., p. 590.
2 Parke's Chem. Essays, vol. i., p. 10.
3 Lib. v., c. 33.   4 Plut., de Garrulitate, vol. ii., 1. 510.
s Word a'Xaypa, vol. ii., p. 510,




56    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
is buried in marshy ground till a great part of it
is consumed by rust, when it is taken up and
forged, and again buried for eight or ten years,
when what remains is found converted into a
sort of steel, of which they make plowshares
and other tools and weapons. The Japanese
sabres are said to be incomparable, and of such
temper that they will easily cut through a nail
without injuring their edge.'
Some portion of the iron-work of one of the
London bridges having been taken up from a
considerable depth, where it had been buried for
a great length of time, was found to furnish a
very superior material for knives and razors.
Cast iron immersed in sea-water for a long
time is converted into a sort of plumbago, and
the burial of wrought iron in earth may produce in it a change of a similar nature, but less
in degree.
But, besides other ancient modes of preparing steel, there can be little doubt that it was
in some instances obtained directly from such
ores as are now sometimes called steel ores,
simply by the process used in making bar-iron;
and the virtues which Pliny2 ascribes to the
1 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 242, 243.
2 H. N., xxxiv., 41.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.    57
waters of certain places, as Bilbilis in Spain
and Comum in Italy, may have belonged rather to the ores which were there usually employed.
But, whatever may have been the way in
which the ancients made their steel, this at
least is certain, that they possessed instruments
of such a temper as to carve porphyry and other stones that resist the tools of modern artists.l
It is not certain, however, that those instruments were of steel. Modern experiments have
shown that bronze of the ancient composition
may, by cooling it slowly, be rendered as hard as
steel, and at the same time less brittle. Wilkinson (Anc. Egypt., vol. i., 320; vol. ii., 344) describes Egyptian knives and daggers of bronze
which, after the lapse of several thousand years,
retain their flexibility and their spring, having
an elasticity which resembles that of steel.
Steel was sometimes called XaiXvP, chalybs,
because obtained, of an excellent quality, from
the country of the Chalybes. Eudoxus, as
cited by Stephanus, De Urbibus (XaXvCgE, p.
714), says, (K &Z TJ7  XaXgtwv xdpas O aiSinpo 6
Respecting the mode and the difficulty of working porphyry, see Winckelmann, Storia delle Arti del Disegno, vol.
i., p. 88; vol. ii., p. 15.




58    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
rqt rai aoroyupuiara E7ratvovutvoS EcayErat1-from
the country of the Chalybes is derived the iron
which is most approved for the steeled parts of
instruments. This is supposed to have been
"the northern iron and the steel" mentioned in
Jeremiah, xv., 12.  The Indian steel (ot8.po~'Iv&8cKC i~catl Cro'0owya) mentioned by the author
of the Periplusl was probably of the kind still
brought from India under the name of wootz;
and the ferrumn candidum  of which' Quintus
Curtius says2 the Indians presented to Alexander a hundred talents may have been the same,
for wootz when polished has a silvery lustre;3
and that kind which Pliny styles Sericum, and to
which he assigns the palm, was perhaps no other.4 The Parthian steel ranks next with Pliny,
and these two kinds only "mera acie temperantur."
Daimachus, a writer contemporary with
Alexander the Great, speaks of four different
kinds of steel, and the purposes to which they
were severally suited.  "Of steels (7rCv sro,01uIarwv) there is the Chalybdic, the Synopic, the
Lydian, and the Lacedemonian. The ChaI See Plin., Exercitationes, p. 763, b F.
2 Lib. ix., c. 8.  3 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 248.
4 H. N., xxxiv., 41.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  59
lybdic is best for carpenters' tools; the Lacedaemonian for files, and drills, and gravers, and
stone chisels; the Lydian also is suited for
files, and for knives, and razors, and rasps."'
What Aristotle, Daimachus, and Eudoxus,
in the passages that have been cited, call cr4ywya, and Plutarch calls ati3lpov aro'Twya Kat
aKiunv,2 is by Latin writers called acies, ferri
acres. This, in the barbarous latinity of a later
period, came to be called acierium, and hence
the French acier.  The Greek and Latin terms
seem to indicate that steel was employed, as in
many cases it still is, merely for the edge, "ad
indurandam aciem," of cutting instruments, and
for such part of other instruments as needed
its harder temper, so that aro'ywya  did not so
much denote steel itself as the steeled part of
the instrument.3
OF LEAD AND TIN.
Lead and Tin are metals which we have the
best reason for treating of under the same head,
since the ancients frequently confounded them,
See Stephanus, De Urbibus, word Lacedcemon; and Fabricii Bib. Graec., vol. ii., p. 588.
2 Vol. ii., p. 693, A.
3 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 236.




60   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
and, however strange may appear such confusion in regard to metals so plainly distinguished
by their properties as these, their names, nevertheless, in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin
are often indifferently used.'
The Greeks, when they would distinguish
the two metals, called tin iaCaCri'Eoc and lead;oALtXoc, but, as the French at this day call
both pewter and tin etain, so did the Greeks
comprehend under the name ocaaciaepoc various
alloys of tin with lead or some other metal;
and some such compound Homer is supposed
to mean when he speaks of tin (KcacriTEpos) used
in the fabrication or ornament of various parts
of armor.2
The Romans distinguished lead (plumbum)
into black and white.3  The latter, plumbum
album, was the more precious, Pliny says, being what by the Greeks was called icaoa[rEoC.
Plumbum album4 is sometimes called stanSalm., De Hom. Hyl. Iatr., p. 234.
2 Mention of icaratrEpog occurs ten times in the Iliad;'
once as used about a chariot, but on every other occasion
about breastplate, shield, or greaves.
3 Plin., H. N., xxxiv., 47.
4 What we term white lead, the dtlyV/ZOlOV of the Greeks
and cerussa of the Romans, was made anciently by processes




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  61
num, while on other occasions the latter is
spoken of as something different, in which case
it may have been an alloy of tin and lead, or,
as Beckmann thinks, of silver and lead; or it
mnay have been designated by a different name
merely because obtained from a different place,
from an ore of different appearance, or by some
different process, since any one of these, we
know, was anciently sufficient ground of distinction between substances that were in fact
identical. If any reliance could be placed on
Pliny's accuracy in a matter of this kind, we
might infer from what he says of the mode in
which stannum was obtained' that the ancients
were acquainted with an argentiferous galena
containing also tin. Beckmann, however, in
his examination of this passage, says that lead
is seldom found without, but that tin, perhaps,
has never been found with silver. He admits
that the passage in question can not be fully
understood with any explanation, yet he thinks
it proves to conviction that the stannum of the
ancients was not tin, but a mixture of silver
and lead, called in the German smelting-houses
werk. It is from stannum, however, that are
that are in use even at the present day. (Dioscor., v., 103;
Plin., xxxiv., 54.)' H. N., xxxiv., 47.




62     ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
derived the names etain and tin.  He supposes
the oldest Kaarairpoc to have been nothing else
than the stannum of the Romans. Aristotle,
however, ascribes to what he calls rov KaaatrEpov rTO KXAT[KOV a property which is characteristic of the metal tin.'
Pliny treats as a fable the account of tin being brought from islands in the Atlantic Sea,
the only localities with which he seems acquainted being Gallicia and Lusitania, where
it was found, he says, on the surface of the
earth, in grains of a black color, and detected
only by its weight. It is now found in Gallicia, in veins traversing granite and mica slate.
Herodotus too professes his ignorance even
of the existence of the islands called Cassiterides, whence tin was brought;2 but Strabo describes them,3 ten in number, as possessing
mines of tin and lead, which, together with
skins, they exchanged for earthen-ware, salt,
and brazen vessels with the merchants who visited them, the Phoenicians alone having at first
carried on this trade from Cadiz. These Cassiterides, which Strabo speaks of as distinct
- Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, iv., 21; Aristotle, Auscult. Mirabil., vol. i., p. 1154.
2 Herod., iii., 115.             Geog., p. 7o.




ANCIENT  MIINERALOGY.    63
from Britain, were what we now call the Scilly
Islands, and probably received the metals they
traded in from the opposite coast of Cornwall.
Diodorus Siculus regards them as belonging to
Spain rather than to Britain, and Dionysius
Periegetes speaks of them as inhabited by
Spaniards.  The former author, having observed that tin occurs in many places in Spain,
not on the surface, as some historians have reported, but dug from the earth and smelted as
gold and silver are, adds that there are many
mines of it in islands, which thence derive their
name, Cassiterides, lying over against the coast
of Spain; and that much was brought from the
island of Britain, also, through Gaul to Marseilles and Narbonne.' The latter author, having in view perhaps their western position only,
calls them the Hesperides, the source of tin.
" Nraovc''aEacrEpitac, ro60 Icaaartr~EpoLo y]ev0M/."2
Lead was obtained in abundance from Spain,
Gaul, and Britain,3 and applied to much the
same uses as in modern times.  Mixed with tin
in equal proportion it constituted plumbum argentarium, and with one third part of tin tertiDiod. Sic., ib. v., c. 38.    2Dion. Perieg., v. 563.
3 Plin., H. N., xxxiv., 49.




64    ANCIENT M INERALOGY.
arium. These were used in the composition of
statuary bronze, and the latter of them for the
solder of leaden pipes, in making which pipes a
vast quantity of lead must have been employed,
considering the mode in which ancient cities
were supplied with water, and the common use
of baths.' It was also used, as copper now is,
in sheathing ships, and, as we shall see, in preparing the common pigments white and red
lead. It or its ore was indispensable in the refining of silver, as Pliny tells us,2 and Theognis speaks of it more than five centuries earlier
as used in refining gold,3 as do likewise Diodorus Siculus4 and others.
But, among the uses to which plumbum album and stannum were applied, well deserves
to be noticed the coating, or tinning, as we term
it, of copper vessels (which, Pliny tells us, rendered the taste more agreeable, and guarded
against the poisonous effects of verdigris) and
the covering in like manner ornamental articles
of copper, so that they could scarcely be distinguished from silver. For this manufacture
were famous the Bituriges, the modern Bourges; and another town of Gaul, Alesia, the
See Vitruv., viii., 6.  2 H. N., xxxiii., 31.
3 Theog., rvqoL., v. 1101.  4 Lib. iii., c. 13.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  65
modern Alise, afterward employed silver for a
like purpose, the plating of harness and carriages of various kinds.'
The ore from which the ancients procured
their lead was that which now furnishes almost
all the lead of commerce-the sulphuret, termed
by us galena-a name which Pliny also uses,2
but as synonymous with molybdena, which is
described by Dioscorides3 and himself as an argentiferous ore of lead. This latter name, molybdena, has been adopted by us to designate a
new and wholly different metal.
OF MERCURY.
Mercury has already been spoken of as
known to the ancients at least as early as Aristotle's time. Vitruvius describes a useful application of its property of forming with gold
an amalgam, and says that silver and copper
can not be rightly gilt without it;4 and the
mode of doing this Pliny has described.5
It seems proper to notice here again, in conHI. N., xxxiv., 48.          2 Ib., xxxiv., 53.
3 Dioscor., v., 100.          4 Vitruv., vii., 8.
5 H. N., xxxiii., 20, 42.  Consult also, respecting the
method of gilding made use of by the ancients, Winckelmann, Stor. delle Arti del Disegno, vol. ii., p. 29.
E




66   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
~nection with the subject of metals, terra cadmia or calamine, an ore of zinc already spoken
of, a substance with which the ancients were
well acquainted, though they are commonly
supposed not to have known zinc itself, except
as combined with copper in the form of brass.
But a passage in Strabo authorizes the belief
that they also knew this metal in a separate
state.  The geographer says' that near Andeira, a town of Troas, is found a stone which being burned becomes iron, and distills false silver
(arioara'et  Evpa'7vpov) when heated in a furnace together with a certain earth, which, receiving the addition of copper, forms the alloy
that some call brass (opExa;aXcov). He adds
respecting thisfalse silver, which was probably
our zinc, that it occurs also near the Tmolus.
Stephanus states the same thing in somewhat
clearer words, and refers to both Theopompus
and Strabo as authorities.2
This earth, which is said to derive its name
cadmia from Cadmus, son of Agenor,3 who first
introduced at Thebes the making of brass,4 is
1 Strabo, p. 610.
2 Steph., De Urbibus, word Andeira.
3 See Hardouin on Pliny, vol. ix., p. 195.
4 Hygini Fab., 272.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  67
spoken of by Aristotle, in a passage before referred to,' but by no name; and Theophrastus
also alludes to it without naming it; for, after
having spoken of the characters and properties
of stones, when he comes next to consider the
different kinds of earths, he mentions, as a very
peculiar one, that " which mingled with copper
is capable not only of melting and blending
with it, but has the extraordinary property of
changing and improving its color."2  Pliny repeatedly speaks of cadmia, but it is evident that
he does not always mean one and the same
thing. Cadmia seems to have signified with
him not only our calamine, but a copper ore
which contained zinc; and the same name was
extended to what the Germans call offenbruci,
furnace calamine, which in melting ores that
contain zinc or in making brass falls to the bottom of the furnace, and contains more or less of
calcined zinc.3  There is little reason to doubt
that the varieties of cadmia which Dioscorides
calls oarpactrtc, 7XamKcw  c, and 3orpvLrtc were
also furnace calamine. Pliny certainly speaks
of them as such, and describes together with
them a fourth variety, which he calls capniSee ante, p. 46.         2 De Lapid., c. 84.
3 Beck., Hist. of Inv., vol. iii., p. 70, 72.




68    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
tis.' The contrary opinion of Saumaise is
founded on what Beckmann seems justly to regard, as an annotation that has been admitted
into the text of Dioscorides.
The pompholyx and spodos of Dioscorides2
and Pliny3 were oxides of zinc, more or less
pure, produced by combustion of the calamiine
in the process of making brass. There was no
essential difference between the two, but spodos was the heavier and of a darker color, being less completely oxidized, or less perfectly
sublimated, and mixed with impurities from the
walls and pavement of the furnace. Pompholyx was the white oxide called flowers of zinc
or lana philosophica, and is compared by Dioscorides also to carded wool.4
OF ANTIMONY.
A sulphuret of Antimony, called by the
Greeks arn:ritUL and by the Romans stibium, was
from the earliest times and still is used in the
East for tinging black the hair and eyebrows,
the eyelashes, and edges of the lids, this last
application being with a view to increase the
apparent size of the eye, wherefore arrt'yLt was
H. N., xxxiv., 22.       2 Dioscor., v., 85.
3 H. N., xxxiv., 33.      4 Dioscor., v., 85.




ANCIENT  MINE R A LOG Y.    69
sometimes called 7rXarvo'gOaXyov. The use of
this cosmetic is twice spoken of in Scripture, at
least according to the Seventy, for our version
has not in either passage' specified the kind or
color of the paint employed. Pliny's description of stibium2 does not suit in all respects the
common sulphuret of antimony; but this mineral may have been found then more frequently associated, as it now sometimes is, with the
white oxide or with the nickeliferous sulphuret, to either of which Pliny's description of it
as "'candida nitensque" might with propriety
be applied. In preparing it as a paint, it is,
according to Dioscorides,3 to be inclosed in a
lump of dough, and that buried in coals until
reduced to a cinder: extinguished with milk
and wine, it is to be again placed upon coals
and blown until ignition, but if burned longer
it becomes lead (/oXtLgo7raL).  Pliny directs
cow-dung to be used in place of dough, and varies so entirely from the recipe of Dioscorides
that it is evident he had some other authority
before him, yet he too recommends as especially necessary to observe moderation in burning
it, lest it should be converted into lead (ne
2 Kings, ix., 30; Ezekiel, xxiii., 40.
2 H. N., xxxiii., 33.       3 Dioscor.,, v., 99.




70    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
plumbum fiat).-l The fair inference from these
passages appears to be that the ancients occasionally saw antimony also reduced to its metallic state, but, as in the case of zinc,2 confounded it in a loose and careless way with another metal better known to them.
METALLIC SUBSTANCES, EARTHS, ETC., EMPLOYED AS PIGMENTS BY THE ANCIENTS.
The most famous ancient painters-Apelles,
Echion, Melanthius, and Nichomachus-used
only four colors, the white melinum, the Attic
sil, the sinopis of Pontus, and atramentum.3
Colors are divided by Pliny into bright and
dull (floridi et austeri). The florid or bright
pigments are those with which the employer
furnishes the artist, as minium, armenium,
cinnabari, chrysocolla, indicum, purpurissum.
Other colors are austere or dull. Pigments
are again divided into native-as sinopis, rubrica, paraetonium, melinum, eretria, auripigmentum-and factitious, of which also divers kinds
are specified.4
In considering these substances separately,
it will not be necesary to observe exactly the
order in which they are here named.
H. N., xxxiii., 34.    2 See ante, p. 66.
Plin., H. N., xxxv., 7.  4 H. N., xxxv., 12.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  71
KLvvaaetL. Theoph., c. 103.  "ApuLov. Dioscor., lib. v., c. 109, 110. Minium. Vitruv.,
lib. vii., c. 8, 9; Plin., lib. xxxiii., c. 40.
This pigment was, as we learn from Theophrastus,l either native or factitious. The native came from Spain and Colchis, rough and
stony; the factitious from a single place not
far from Ephesus. The process of preparing
it from a bright scarlet sand there found is described by Theophrastus as the invention, about
ninety years before his time, of one Callias, an
Athenian, who was led by the shining appearance of this sand to expect gold from it-a hope
which its unusual weight may have contributed
to  encourage.   This Ephesian  KLVVaigapL of
Theophrastus, which by Vitruvius and Pliny
is called minium, we are perfectly sure, from
what Vitruvius says, was sulphuret of mercury. That, however, Dioscorides calls a/utlov, and appropriates the name Klvva'aCa  to a
substance brought from Libya, which some, he
says, thought to be dragon's blood. Arrian
Here, and in all that follows respecting ancient pigments, a general reference to Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Vitruvius, or Pliny is intended as a reference to that portion of
their works cited at the beginning of each article respectively.




72  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
and Pliny speak of an Indian cinnabar, which
the former correctly enough describes as the
inspissated tear-drop, as it were, of trees, while
the latter regards it as the mingled and concreted blood of a dragon and a dying elephant
crushing the serpent by its weight.l From
this strange notion has been derived the vulgar
name of dragon's blood, sometimes applied to
reddle, and sometimes to a dark-red resin imported from the East Indies, the substance
which Arrian intended to describe.
Minium was a pigment highly valued, and
even held sacred among the ancients. With it
were painted the statues of the gods and the
persons of those who triumphed.2  The titles
of books also, at a somewhat later period, as
well as the initial and more important letters,
were decorated and rendered more conspicuous
by means of it, and those who were employed
in doing this were, from their use of minium,
Arrian, Peripl. Mar. Eryth., p. 159; and Plin., H. N.,
xxxiii., 7, edit. Var.
2 Plin., H. N., xxxiii., 36; Winckelmann, Stor. delle A.
del Dis., vol. i., p. 16; Pausan., p. 115, and Kuhn's note
thereon. With this practice of painting red the persons of
victors might be compared that of our North Arerican Indians.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  73
called miniatores. The word miniature is probably derived from this practice of illuminating
the initial letters in manuscripts, these miniaturce being originally monochromata, for which,
whenever painted, the ancients commonly made
use of minium.l
In Pliny's time minium, though found elsewhere, was brought from scarce any place but
Spain, whence native cinnabar to the amount
of about ten thousand pounds' weight annually
was sent under seal to Rome, where the exclusive privilege of manufacturing vermilion
seems to have been enjoyed by a company,
which, not content with its fair profits, derived
a farther gain from various adulterations of the
genuine pigment. The fraudulent substitute
for minium  spoken of by Pliny as found in almost all silver and lead mines, and prepared by
burning thoroughly the stone associated with
the silver ore, was probably red-lead.2
Winck., Stor. delle A. del Dis., vol. ii., p. 60; Plin.,
xxxiii., 39. Our word rubric has a like origin with that suggested for miniature, the red oxyde of iron, called rubrica,
having been used as a substitute for minium to illuminate
initial letters. Hence Juvenal (Sat. xiv., v. 192) calls the
laws of the ancients rubras, and Persius (Sat. v., v. 90) speaks
of Massurii rubrica.          2 1-. N., xxxiii., 40.




74    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
MiXroS. Theoph., c. 91-95; Dioscor., lib. v.,
c. 111, 112. Bubrica. Vitruv., lib. vii., c.
7; Plin., lib. xxxv., c. 13,14.
This more common red pigment among the
ancients was the ochrey red oxyde of iron. The
best, Theophrastus says, was that of Cea, but
the Lemnian and the Sinopic too were celebrated. The latter, found in Cappadocia, and
carried down to Sinope, derived thence its
name, which was often applied to the like substance, from whatever country it might have
been obtained. This red ochre was found varying considerably as to compactness, fineness,
and intensity of color, and passing sometimes
into reddle and bole. The terra Lemnia or sigillata was bole,' and is sometimes distinguished
from the rubrica of the same island, which is
the kind of rubrica preferred by Dioscorides
and Pliny. The terra Lemnia (which, differing little from rubrica, is regarded by Pliny as
the same) was never sold unsealed, and was
therefore called aqpa7ic, terra sigillata, the
sphragide of Jameson. It was stamped before
the time of Dioscorides2 with the figure of a
goat; afterward, in Galen's time, with the image of Diana; and has been of later years with
i Cleav. Min., p. 473.   2 Dioscor., v., 113.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  75
the seal of the Turkish empire. It was formerly mutch used in medicine as an astringent.
From Egypt and Carthage was obtained an
inferior kind of pfXros or rubrica used by carpenters,l who for coloring their line made use
of red more commonly, but sometimes black,2
and not of white, as we do. Accordingly, a
white line being one that made no mark, to use
a white line, X)v:j'i cr tO/p,, was a proverbial expression for to act without discernment. This
more common or cheaper red ochre was sometimes made by burning yellow ochre, which
was the discovery, Theophrastus says, of one
Cydias, who, where a certain inn had been consumed by fire, saw half-burned yellow ochre
converted into red. Both Theophrastus and
Vitruvius3 describe the mode of preparing this
red pigment, which the latter writer and Pliny
call usta, though Pliny comprehends under the
same name, usta, another common red pigment,
red-lead, discovered, as the last mentioned was,
accidentally, from jars containing white-lead
(cerussa) having been exposed to the heat of a
conflagration in the Pirxeus.4
I Dioscor., v., 113.
2 Eustath. in Hornm. Od., E., v., 245.
3 Vitrnv., vii., 11.     4 H. N., xxxv., 20.




76    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
lavsapa'Kc. Theoph.,c. 71; Dioscor.,v., 122.
Sandaraca. Plin., xxxv., 22; Vitruv.,
vii., 7.
This red pigment was the sulphuret of arsenic, called realgar.  An adulterate kind of it
was made, Pliny says, of calcined white-lead;
that is, the red-lead he had just before described
under the name usta was substituted for realgar. But Vitruvius prefers to the native sandaraca this substitute, which he designates by
no other name, simply saying that cerussa is
by the heat of a furnace converted into sandaraca.  A mixture of sandaraca with rubrica in
equal proportions made the paint called sandix, and a farther addition of sinopis produced
that called syricum.1 Strabo speaks2 of a mine
of Sandaraca at Pompeiopolis, in Paphlagonia,
in which, because of the dangerous exhalations
from the mineral, none other were employed but
slaves who had been sold on account of crime.
Purpurissum, a red pigment, which, because
of its great cost, was furnished by employers,3
was composed of creta argentaria dyed in a decoction of hysginum,4 or of madder, as Dutch
1 Plin., H. N., xxxv., 23, 24.
2 Strabo, p. 562.    3 Plin., H. N., xxxiv., 12.
4 A crimson dye made from an insect found on the plant
called ivayi.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    77
pink is made by combining with clay or marl
the coloring matter of woad or that obtained
from the berries of the yellow-leaved buckthorn (Rhamnus infectorius). The creta spoken
of by Pliny and by Vitruvius as the basis of
purpurissum, armenium, ccerulium, factitious
chrysocolla, and other pigments was generally
an argillaceous earth. It may, however, sometimes have been chalk, if indeed the Greeks and
Romans were acquainted with any chalk adapted to such use. It is very probable, moreover,
that it was in some cases a white talc, like that
called chalk of Brianqon, which when reduced
to a fine powder and colored with the flowers of
the Carthamus tinctorius' is still used, as the
purpurissum of the Romans was,2 to give an
artificial bloom to the complexion.
"'2Xpc. Theoph., c. 115; Dioscor., v., 108.
Sil. Vitruv., vii., 7; Plin., xxxiii., 56.
Yellow ochre, which the Greeks called simply Oxepa, and the Romans sil, appears to have
been the principal yellow pigment of the ancients. Pliny specifies three varieties: the
Attic, which was best; the marmorosum, which
may have been what we call stone ochre; and' Bastard saffron.
2 Plaut., Mostel., i., 3, 104; Trucul., ii., 2, 35.




78    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
the Syricum, of a dull color, named from the
island Syros, as may have been the red paint,
also, called by the same name. Sil was found
in many places, Vitruvius observes, but the
Attic, which used to be the best, was no longer
to be obtained, because the veins of it, which
occurred in the silver mines of Attica, were no
longer now explored. It is described by Dioscorides as light, smooth, free from stone, friable, and of a full bright yellow; and probably
any ochre possessed of these qualities continued in Pliny's time to be called Attic. Theophrastus' speaks of painters using ochre
(Xpea) instead of orpiment (pipEvticov), because, however they might seem to differ, there
was, in fact, no difference of color.
Polygnotus and Mycon were the first who
painted with sil. The Attic, which they used,
and that called lucidum, which came from Gaul,
were afterward employed for the lights of pictures, and the Syricum, the Achaean, and the
Lydian for the obscurer parts.'APPEvtKCo. Theoph., c. 71, 89, 90.'ApaEvtKOV. Dioscorides, v., 121.  Auripigmentum. Vitruv., vii., 7; Plin., xxxiii., 22.
Arsenicum. Plin., xxxiv., 56.
The yellow sulphuret of arsenic derives its
De Lapid., c. 90.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  79
name, orpiment, from one of its Latin appellations, auripigmentum, and it was so called, perhaps, not merely from its golden color and the
use to which it was applied, but because the
ancients thought it really contained that metal.
Pliny mentions, among other modes of obtaining gold, that of making it from orpiment, and
says that Caius (Caligula) ordered a great
quantity of that substance to be reduced, " and
certainly obtained excellent gold, but in such
small proportion as to lose by an experiment
which was not afterward repeated." Although
no great reliance can be placed on this account,
we are not of necessity to regard it as a fable,
for the mass experimented on may have contained, as it is said this mineral sometimes does,
a small portion of gold.'
The Greek name apoeavulc:v (masculine) was
given to this sulphuret because of the potent
qualities it was discovered to possess-qualities
which tbh present arsenic of the shops, a white
oxyde of the metal, exhibits in a more inHill says he had a fine specimen of orpiment from the
mines of Gosselaer, with veins of native sandarach running
across it, which was brought to him as a gold ore, and which,
he thought, really contained a small quantity of that metal.
-Hill's Trans. of Theoph., p. 176.




80    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
tense degree. The ancients were well aware
of the kindred nature of this yellow sulphuret
and the red sulphuret before mentioned, called
sandaraca.  Theophrastus always mentions
them together; Dioscorides observes that they
are found in the same mine; Celsus that they
possess in all respects the same virtue;l and
Pliny that they are of the same substance.
The two were then, in fact, as now, found occasionally intermixed.  "There is a third
kind," says Pliny, " in which the golden color
is mingled with the red."
Theophrastus and Pliny.speak of both these
minerals as found in gold and silver mines, and
of orpiment Pliny says that it is dug in Syria,
for the use of painters, near the surface of the
ground, of a golden color, friable like the specular stone (lapidum specularium modo), that is,
the lamina3 were easily separable " like those
of mica."2 Vitruvius mentions Pontus as a locality, and Dioscorides names Mysia as the
country whence the best was brought, that of
Pontus holding the second rank.
Massicot, the yellow oxyde of lead, which Sir
H. Davy thinks was used as a pigment by the
ancients,3 may have been comprehended by
C1 els., v., 5.        2 Cleav. Min., p. 679.
3 See Ure's Chem. Dict., article Paints.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    81
them under the name chrysitis, one of the three
varieties of litharge (XtOa cyvpoc) described by
Dioscorides,l and by Pliny, who has copied him.
Its name (XpvaT1rtc) was no doubt derived from
its being, as Dioscorides describes it, yellow
and shining (~avOr3 ical arTlXovca), and in so far
resembling gold. Though Dioscorides speaks
only of its medicinal properties, yet, since the
seven substances which form the subjects of
his seven next succeeding chapters were all
pigments, we may reasonably suppose chrysitis
also to have been such.
Xpvoico'?,Xa. Theoph., c. 46; Dioscor., v.,
104.  Chrysocolla. Vitruv., vii., 9; Plin.,
xxxiii., c. 26, 27, 28.
This was a green pigment much spoken of
among the ancients, and which has been with
the moderns a subject of much uncertainty and
doubt. It is probable that under one and the
same denomination were comprehended malachite, copper-green, and various green earths.
The name applied to those several substances
properly belonged to a factitious compound,
described by Pliny,2 used in soldering gold.
In this chrysocolla (gold glue), "which the
goldsmiths claim as theirs" (aurifices sibi vindiDioscor., v., 102.        2 H. N., ix., 29.
F




82     ANCIENT  M I N E R A L O GY.
cant), the most important ingredient, perhaps,
was the subcarbonate of soda (nitrum).' The
best chrysocolla, Pliny tells us, was procured
from copper mines, the next best from silver
mines, the third quality from gold mines, and
that least valued from lead mines. His description of it, as a substance which from a liquid flowing through mineral veins had become
indurated, agrees well with the undulated appearance often presented by the surface of compact malachite, and its color, too, is that of malachite, being most approved, he says, when it
resembled that of luxuriant corn while in the
tender blade.  When used in medicine.it excites vomiting, he says, and Dioscorides, too, observes that it is one of the substances "which
promote vomiting and can cause death." This
author states that the best was brought from
Armenia, the second kind from Macedonia, and
the third from Cyprus.
Theophrastus speaks of "native cyanos containing chrysocolla,"2 or, in modern terms, of
the blue carbonate of copper containing, as it
1 Some have been so far mistaken as to suppose the chrysocolla of Pliny to be the biborate of soda (borax) now used
by jewelers in soldering gold. (See Jameson's Mineralogy,
ii., 350.)                    2 De Lapid., c. 70.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    83
often does, the green; and Aristotle also mentions that the two occur together in the island
Demonesus.1 Kidd agrees with others in
thinking the chrysocolla of Theophrastus to be
malachite, but supposes the Greek term to have
in this case a passive signification, and to imply
that the substance was "set in gold," it being
sometimes polished as an ornamental stone.2
The impure ores of copper, called by some mineralogists copper-green, are by  others, as
Brongniart, Aikin, and Phillips, denominated
chrysocolla, and it is most probable that some
of them were by the ancients comprehended
under that name, as were also some of those
green earths now known as mountain-green, or
green earth of Saxony, from its being there obtained, as it is likewise at Kernhausen in Hungary, near Verona in Italy, and in various parts
of the United States.3 Vitruvius speaks of a
green earth, fit for the use of painters, found in
many places, but the best at Smyrna.4 Celsus
speaks of viride Alexandrinum,5 and Pliny of
viride Appianum.6 These earths differ consid1 Arist., De Mirab. Auscult., vol. i., p. 1154.
2 Kidd's Min., ii., 120.  3 Cleav. Min., p. 445.
4 Vitruv., vii., 7.     5 Cels., v., c. 26, ~ 23.
6 H. N., xxxv., 29.




84    ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
erably from place to place in their composition,
but do not often contain copper, to which metal
they were once supposed to owe their color.
That the name chrysocolla was very loosely
used is evident; for Pliny has described one
kind obtained by the evaporation during June
and July of waters suffered to flow through
metallic veins during the preceding winter and
until the month of June; and, if his text here
were not corrupt, he would probably be found
to describe another factitious kind in much the
same way that Vitruvius does, who says that
those who can not use chrysocolla, because of
its high price, dye a blue pigment (cceruleum)
with the herb called lutum (which produced a
yellow color), and thus obtain a lively green.
From Dr. Ure's analysis of an ancient green
pigment brought by  Mr. Wilkinson  from
Thebes, it was found to consist of blue glass in
powder, yellow ochre, and particles of a colorless glass, which served to give it a brighter
hue.'
"Io. Theoph., c. 102; Dioscor., v., 91. ~Erugo. Vitruv., vii., 12; Plin., xxxvi., 26.
Verdigris was among the ancients, as it is at
this day, a common green pigment, and may be
Wilk., Anc. Egyp., vol. iii., p. 302.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  85
considered as belonging to our subject, seeing
that Dioscorides and Pliny specify several varieties of native'lo or verugo, classing with
it in this case what we may suppose to have
been green carbonate instead of acetate of copper; as, for example, ""the efflorescence upon
stones which contained copper," and what was
"scraped from the stone out of which copper
was melted."
Various modes of making verdigris are described by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and
Pliny, which agree in principle, and some of
them even as to their details, with processes now
used. Among the various adulterations of it,
that made with the sulphate of iron (atramentum sutorium) was, as we learn from Pliny, the
one best calculated to deceive, and the mode of
detecting it suggested by him is deserving notice. It was to rub the counterfeit varugo on
papyrus steeped with the gall-nut, which immediately thereon turned black.
KvavoS. Theoph., c. 98; Dioscor., v., 106.
Coeruleum. Vitruv., vii., 11; Plin., xxxiii.,
57.
Under these names were comprehended by
the ancients several blue pigments differing
widely in their origin and nature. Theophras



86    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
tus, having observed that cyanus (Kvavoc) is
either native (avroqvrs) or factitious (aKevaa8ro), as in Egypt, specifies three kinds, the
Egyptian, the Scythian, and the Cyprian, of
which the two last named appear to have been
native, and in that case were probably the blue
carbonate of copper. What the Egyptian cyanus was has been a subject of much doubt.
Some travelers have thought the blue which
may still be recognized in the paintings of
Thebes to be ultramarine; and Beckmann infers that the blue seen on mummies, having
lost little or nothing of its brightness, must be
either ultramarine or cobalt, but with the latter
he thinks it can be shown that the Egyptians
were unacquainted.2 Modern analyses, however, have shown his mistake, and that the blue
on ancient pottery, both Egyptian and Chinese,
was sometimes derived from cobalt.
Theophrastus speaks of the artificial cyanus
as prepared by means of fire (-7rwrvpWyEvoC),
which agrees well with the idea of its being
ultramarine; but so does it also with the account which Vitruvius gives of this matteran account which, it seems, might have settled
1 See Norden's Travels, vol. ii., p. 51.
2 Hist, of Inv., ii., 360.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  87
all doubts, had it received the attention it deserves. The composition of cceruleum, he says,
was first invented at Alexandria,' and a manufactory of it afterward established at Puteoli
by Vestorius. It was made by reducing sand
mingled with pure nitrum (subcarbonate of
soda) to a fine powder, which, being sprinkled
with coarse copper filings, was formed into
balls and dried. The balls were then arranged
in earthen vessels, and placed in a furnace, until by its heat they were converted into coeruleum. Now this is precisely the cceruleum
prepared by Sir H. Davy,2 who found that 15
parts of carbonate of soda, 20 parts of opaque
flint powdered, and 3 parts by weight of copper filings, strongly heated together for two
hours, yielded a compound which when powdered produced a fine deep sky-blue, which he
regarded as the same azure employed in some
ancient paintings.3 But there are chemists
There must be some inaccuracy here, if Vitruvius has in
view, as is most probable, the Egyptian azure spoken of by
Theophrastus; for he, writing about the time of the foundation of Alexandria, says that " those who write of the Egyptian kings mention the king who first made artificial azure
in imitation of the native," c. 98.
2 See Paris's Life of Sir H. Davy, vol. ii, p. 48, 299.
See Ure's Chem, Dict,, article Paints,  Sir I. Davy




88   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
who regard this preparation, called " cendres
bleus," as not a very permanent pigment, and
therefore doubt if any of the blues now remaining in Egypt were so prepared.
As to the native azure, there seems little
reason to doubt that it was generally, if not always, blue carbonate of copper.l Pliny observes2 that it is found in gold and silver mines,
and Theophrastus speaks of it as occurring together with chrysocolla, that is, with malachite.
This blue carbonate was at one time much used
in Persia as a pigment,3 and is so used in some
countries to this day.4  Pliny mentions as other varieties of coeruleum, the Puteolanum, the
Vestorianum, and the Hispaniense.  The first
two we may infer from what Vitruvius says to
have been the same with each other and with
the Egyptian, and the last, which seems, like
the others, to have been factitious, probably
differed from them only as to the place from
which it came.  The coeruleum  styled lhdicum, which Pliny speaks of as not long before
seems to differ from Beckmann in supposing the ancients to
have been acquainted with cobalt.
1 Beck., Hist. of Inv., vol. ii., p. 325, 329.
2 H. N., xxxiii., 56.   3 Beck., Hist. of Inv., ii., 317.
4 Cle~a. Min., p.-5(38.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  89
his time introduced, was probably indigo.' We
find from  Dioscorides2 and Vitruvius3 that it
came from India; and the former, though he
does not describe it as a vegetable substance,
supposes it to be a concretion about Indian
reeds. Pliny, however, mentions, as a test by
which the true cceruleum Indicum might be
distinguished, that, placed upon a coal, it exhibited a brilliant purple flame, "flammam excellentis purpurae"-a property of coeruleum
which could not belong to such mineral substances as have heretofore been spoken of under
that denomination, but characteristic of indigo,
which is sublimed by heat, producing a splendid blue or purple vapor.
Pliny says a fraudulent imitation of cceruleum was produced by a decoction of dry violets
strained through a linen cloth upon creta Eretria; and he speaks obscurely of still another
factitious kind, which in Vitruvius4 we find described more clearly as an imitation of the Indian azure obtained by dyeing creta Selinusia
or argentaria with woad, the'lartcs of the
1 See Schneider's Comment. on Vitruv., lib. vii., c. 9; and
Beck., Hist. of Inv., vol. iv., p. 103, 105.
2 Lib. v., 107.                 3 Lib. vii., 9.
4 Vitruv., vii., 14.




90    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
Greeks, called vitrum or glastum by the Romans.'Apulvtov. Dioscor., v., 105. Armenium. Vitruv., vii., 9; Pliny, xxxv., 28.
This blue pigment, called after the country
whence it came, is described by Pliny as differing from cceruleum in that it has a whitish
tinge. The kind which by Dioscorides is esteemed the best appears to have been an earth,
for he requires it to be smooth, friable, and free
from stone. It was probably the same mineral he speaks of in the next chapter under the
name cyanus, only that it was in an earthy form,
and came from Armenia instead of Cyprus. In
its medicinal effects it resembled chrysocolla,
but was less efficacious. Besides this earthy
blue pigment there was also a stone called lapis
Armenius, and this is thought to have been some
quartzy or calcareous substance penetrated by
the blue carbonate of copper. Jameson says
the Armenian stone of the ancients was a limestone- impregnated with earthy azure copper
ore, and in which copper and iron pyrites were
sometimes disseminated.
Among the blue pigments made use of by
the ancients Jameson would include the earthy
phosphate of iron, " for a substance answering




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  91
to blue iron earth is mentioned by Pliny as being collected in the marshes of Egypt, and
ground, and washed, and used as a pigment;"
and there are peat-bogs in New Jersey where
a similar earthy phosphate of iron is found.'
Besides the several white earths employed as
pigments by the ancients, they used also whitelead, called  qyv0dtov, cerussa; and the mention
of it here may be allowable, since Pliny speaks2
as if there were a native kind that had at one
time been in use, although when he wrote it
was artificially prepared. The processes described by Theophrastus,3 Dioscorides,4 Vitruvius,5 and himself, do not differ essentially from
those now used. The substance spoken of by
Pliny as a native cerussa, found at Smyrna on
the farm of Theodotus, appears to have been
that greenish earth mentioned by Vitruvius6 as
occurring in many places, but the best near
Smyrna, and called by the Greeks Zeo4rtiov,
from the name of the person, Theodotus, upon
whose farm it was first discovered.  From the
fact that this greenish earth was regarded as a
See Renwick's Outlines of Geology.
2 H. N., xxxv., 19.        3 Theoph., c. 101.
Dioscor., v., 103.        5 Vitruv., vii., 12.
6 Vitruv., vii., 7.




92  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
sort of ceruse, we might infer that the ceruse
of the ancients was not always of a very pure
white.
OF EARTHS USED IN MEDICINE OR AS
PIGMENTS.
Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Vitruvius, Pliny,
and other ancient authors speak of various
earths used in medicine chiefly, or as pigments,
and the second named of these writers specifies
certain properties of these earths that were
possessed in common by them all.' Indeed,
with the exception of ampelite, they seem to
have resembled each other greatly in their supposed medicinal virtues, as well as in their external characters.  Thus, the Selinusian had
the same effects with the Chian,2 and this the
same with the Samian.3  The Pnigitis resembled in color the Eretrian, and was sold in place
of it by some, and it possessed the same virtues
with the Cimolian.4  These earths were in
most cases argillaceous, and by the term creta
was generally meant some whitish clay, such as
potter's clay, pipe-clay, or fuller's earth. It was
1 Dioscor., v., 170.   2 Ib., v., 175.   3 Ib., v., 174.
4 Ib., v., 177; Plin., xxxv., 56.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    93
sometimes, however, applied to a calcareous
marl, of which kind probably were the " candida
fossitia creta," used in Gaul as a manure,' and
the " creta pulvis," which Palladius recommends
for the same purpose;2 and we have reason to
believe that where such magnesian earths occurred as those varieties of talc and steatite
which we call French and Spanish chalk, the ancients comprehended them also under the name
creta. That creta was clay we might infer from
the uses to which it was applied; but we are
besides expressly told it was so by the writers
"De Re Rustica" and others.  " Creta, quam
argillam  dicimus," says Palladius.3  "Creta,
qua utuntur figuli, quamque nonnulli argillam
vocant," says Columella.4  These writers speak
repeatedly of "creta figularis"5-" creta qua
fiunt amphora."6  Celsus, too, speaks of" creta
figularis,"7 and Vitruvius of "vas ex creta factum, non coctum."8
One of the most celebrated of those earths
was the creta Cimolia, much used, both in med-'Varro, i., 7,' 8.       2 Feb., xxv., 22.
3 Pallad., i., 34, 3.      4 Column., iii., 11, 9.
6 Col., iii., 11, 9; vi., 17, 6; viii., 2, 3; Veg., iii., 4.
6 Col., xii., 4, 5.        7 Cels., i., 3.
8 Vitruv., viii., 1, 5.




94   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
icine and as a fuller's earth for scouring and
cleansing woolen cloths. Both uses of it seem
to have been more ancient at least than the age
of Hippocrates, for he more than once prescribes' detersive earth (qrynrrpi'a yiv), which
Erotianus and Galen explain to mean Cimolia
(riv KqtuoXiav).  This earth, which anciently
gave celebrity to Cilnolus,2 still forms beds in
that island, now called Argentiera, and in Milo.
It was in modern times first recognized by
Tournefort,3 and is now called by mineralogists
cimolite, argile cimolithe. It is grayish white,
but by exposure to the air becomes reddish,
whence probably is derived Pliny's distinction
of it into two kinds, " candidum, et ad purpurissum inclinans."4 It possesses the detergent
property of fuller's earth, but is less unctuous
to the touch than that variety of clay. Mr.
Hawkins found that the terra cimolia which he
procured at Argentiera cleansed woolens as
well as the best fuller's earth. The inhabitants of the island still use it, not only for this
purpose, but as a substitute for soap in wash1 Hippocr., Op., p. 667, 1; p. 884, E.
2,, Hinc humilem Myconen, cretosaque rura Cimoli."Ov., Met., vii., 463.
3 Jam. Min., i., 478.      4 H. N., xxxv., 57.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.    95
ing linens; though, from what Tournefort observes, it seems badly suited to such use, inasmuch as the grains of sand which it contains
are apt to wear away the linen.1 The name
cimola was applied to other earths besides that
of the island Cimolus, from their possessing in
greater or less degree its detersive properties.
That of Sardinia Pliny styles "vilissima omnium cimolae generum"-the cheapest kind of
cimolite. This creta Sarda was, however, used
in the first place to cleanse garments that were
not dyed, which were then fumigated with sulphur, and finally scoured with cimolia.2 We
perceive, therefore, that when " cretata vestis,"
" cretata ambitio candidati," are spoken of we
are not, as some have done, to fancy that the
gown of the candidate was whitened with a
sprinkling of powdered chalk, but that it was
cleansed and brightened by the fuller's art.
The first of the earths enumerated by Pliny,
collyrium, is still represented in our cabinets
by the kollyrite, argile kollyrite; and of the
last one in his arrangement and in that of Dioscorides, ampelitis, we retain the name, under
Brongn., Min., i., p. 619; Tournefort's Voyage, vol.
i., p. 113, Eng. trans.
2 Plin., H. N., xxxv.j 57.




96   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
which some mineralogists have included aluminous and graphic slate.l
The ampelitis of the ancients appears to have
been a bituminous shale, and is called by Strabo "the bituminous earth  ampelitis."2  This
earth was found near Seleucia in Syria, was
black, and resembled small pine charcoal, and
when rubbed to powder would dissolve in a
little oil poured upon it. Its name was derived'from its being used to anoint the vine (atII7rXoc), and preserve it from  the attack  of
worms3 —a use to which it is said that bitumen
has been recently applied. The Cilician earth
spoken of by Theophrastus,4 which when boiled
became viscid, and with which, instead of birdlime, vines were anointed to guard them against
insects, was probably something of a like kind.
Collyrium was so called from its supposed
virtue as an external application to sore eyes,5
such remedies being called collyria. It was
one of the two more remarkable varieties of
Brongniart (Min., i., 561) agrees with Messrs. Rome-deLille and Haiiy in thinking ampelitis to have been the same
with the minerals which he describes under the names ampelite alumineux and ampelite graphique.
2 Strab., p. 316.      3 Dioscor., v., 181.
4 De Lapid., c. 85.    5 Plin., H. N., xxxv., 53.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  97
Samian earth, the other of which, called aster,
resembled probably the ochra Attica vel asterace of Celsus.1
The earths had their several names from the
places where they respectively occurred. The
Selinusian was sometimes called argentaria, because used to polish silb er. The earth spoken
or in connection with Selinusian, and called annularia, which was stained with woad to produce
an imitation of indicum,2 may have been the
same with the annulare mentioned afterward,3
which was so called because made of clay colored with common glass ring stones. This at
least, strange as it is, appears to be the only
sense we can extract from Pliny's words, the
meaning of which Beckmann acknowledges he
had not been able to discover.4 The same author inclines to slhink that annularia received
its nai ie from its use in sealing-a purpose to
which certain kinds of earth were anciently applied.5 Another conjecture finds annularia in
the clay-stones which occur in curious circular
1 Celsus, v., 14, and Milligan in Celsum, p. 201.
2 Plin., H. N., xxxv., 27.   3 Ib, xxxv., 30.
4 Hist. of Inv., iv., 106.
5 See Herod., ii., 38; Cic. pro Flacco, c. 16; Beck., Hist.
oir Inv., i., 208.
G




98  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
nodules, and sometimes in the form of rings.
Pnigitis was probably obtained from the neighborhood of a village called Pnigeus, on the coast
of Egypt, not far from which was a promontory
of white earth called the White Coast (AEsicq'A cr).1  Nearly related to Pnigitis was Paravtonium, one of the earths most commonly made
use of as a white pigment,2 and which derived
its name from a town in Egypt, where it was
obtained, not far from Alexandria. It was a
heavy, tough clay, of a fine white color, and in
the mass often contained minute shells and
other impurities, owing probably to its having
been rolled by the waves upon the beach, after
being washed in a purer state out of sea-beaten
cliffs in which strata of it were contained. It
was procured from Cyrene also, and from
Crete,3 and, Hardouin says, is found in Saxony, and known by the same name.4
Melinum, or terra Melia, was so called from
the island Melos (Milo), where it was obtained.
It was of an ashy white, resembling the ashcolored Eretrian earth, and was useful in paintStrabo, p. 799.
2 Vitruv., 77; Plin., H. N., xxxv., 18.
3 Plin., H. N., xxxv., 18.
HIard. in Plin., vol. ix., p. 414.




ANCIENT MI-NERALOGY.  99
ing to give permanence to colors.l One of the
several varieties of Samian earth resembled it,
but, being unctuous, stiff, and slippery, was not
employed by painters.2  The Melian was applied to the same uses in medicine as the Eretrian earth.
Theophrastus, speaking of factitious pigments, adds that there are three or four varieties of native earths, which from their superior
usefulness deserve mention; and he specifies
the Melian, the Cimolian, the Samian, and the
Tymphaican, which last he farther characterizes as gypsum. Of these the Melian alone,
and such others as possessed its qualities-that
is, the opposite of those above ascribed to Samian earth-were used by painters.3  There
were in Melos and in Samos many varieties of
earth. The Samian was obtained from a vein
of considerable extent, but only two feet in
height between the rocks which formed its roof
and floor, so that one could not stand erect
1 Dioscor., v., 181. It was also used by women as a cosmetic, and seems to have answered the same purpose as the
cerussa, which is mentioned with it. (Plaut., Mostel., i., 3,
107.)
2 Theoph., De Lapid., c. 108; Plin., H. N., xxxv., 19.
3 Theoph., e. 107.




100    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
while digging it, but was obliged to lie upon
his back or side.  This vein  contained four
different qualities of earth, which became better
in proportion as it was obtained from nearer
the centre of the vein, the outer and inferior
kind, called aster, being chiefly or solely used
for cleansing garments.l  Such of these white
earths as were used for pigments resembled
probably the clays still so employed under the
names of Spanish white, white of Moudon or
Morat, and Rouen white.2 The white pigment,
however, scraped from paintings in the tombs of
the kings at Thebes appeared from Dr. Ure's
analysis to be "nothing but a very pure chalk,
containing hardly any alumina, and a mere trace
of iron."3  The Tymphaic earth was an earthy
gypsum found near Perrhmebia and Tymphaea, in
Jtolia, on the surface of the ground, and was
used in cleansing garments.4  It is remarkable
that Pliny should have omitted all mention of
Some suppose one variety of Samian earth to have been.
meerschaum, and that of this were formed those celebrated
Samian vessels spoken of by Pliny (xxxv., 46), by Plautus
(Capt. a, ii., sc. 2), and repeatedly by Cicero (ad Her., iv.,
65; in Verr., i., 50).
2 See Tingry's Painter's and Varnisher's Guide, p. 181,
seq.            3 Wilk., Anc. Egyp., vol. iii., p. 303.
4 Theoph., DO Lapid., c. 111; Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 59.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 101
two earths which are spoken of by grave authors
as applied to an important use. Varro speaksl
of sprinkling "Chalcidicam aut Caricam cretam" among grain to preserve it, and Strabo,
describing a public granary at Cyzicus, in
Phrygia,2 adds, ""rolte 6 rbTv  itr-ov /aani'ovn
XaXIcl:tcnj jtwyvvjtLevn. What these earths of
Chalcis and of Caria may have been we must
leave for others to determine.
OF1 MARBLES AND OTHER MINERAL SUBSTANCES EMIPLOYED IN BUILDING, IN
STATUARY, ETC., BY THE ANCIENTS.
In the earlier times especially, and generally in proportion as the difficulties of transportation were great, we find that the materials used
in building were such as the neighborhood
could most readily supply. The pyramids of
Djizeh, the oldest existing structures, are of
the limestone furnished by the opposite bank
of the Nile, and which, during the inundation,
could be deposited almost at their base. The
temples of Thebes are of the sandstone which
from no great distance above was floated down
the Nile. The walls and private dwellings
De Re Rust., i., 57, 1.     2 Page 575.




102   AN'CIENT MINERALOGY.
throughout Egypt were of unburnt bricks, made
from the earth at hand wherever they were
wanted. In Greece, the Treasury of Atreus
and the Citadel of Mycenoe, which for antiquity
may almost rival with the earliest works of
Egypt, are built of the calcareous conglomerate
or pudding-stone quarried upon the spot.' The
theatres of Chceronea and of Argos are formed
against the hillsides by excavation of the living rock. The temples of Athens were of the
marble of the neighboring Pentelicus. Some
of the ornamental parts of the Erechtheum
were of compact limestone, a material of which
the use in Greece and elsewhere is more ancient than that of any marble.2
In Italy, besides that ready material, travertine, of which the temples at Paestum are constructed, there abounded in the neighborhood
of Rome various volcanic rocks, of which, as
we shall see hereafter, the most ancient remains
of that city are composed.
Among the marbles enumerated by Theophrastus and Pliny, that ranks first with both,
which, from the island Paros, where it was obI Dr. Clarke calls it a breccia, but no angular fragments
are to be discerned.
2 Clarke's Travels, vol. vi., p. 241.




ANCIENT  MINERALOG~Y.   103
tained, was called Parian, and from the manner
in which it was quarried, by the light of lamps,
was sometimes, as Pliny on the authority of
Varro tells us, designated by the name lychnites.l This is the stone which, being regarded as best suited for statuary,2 was used by
Praxiteles and other illustrious Grecian sculptors.3 Its whiteness is celebrated by Pindar4
and Theocritus,5 and its color, Plato thinks, is
pleasing to the gods.6 Of this marble are the
Venus de' Medici, the Diana Venatrix, the colossal'Minerva (called Pallas of Velletri), Ariadne (called Cleopatra), Juno (called Capitolina), and others. Of this are also the celebrated
Oxford marbles known as the Parian Chronicle. Before Pliny's time, however, whiter
marbles than the Parian had been discovered,
and among them the Lunensian (marmor Lunense), which derived its name from the city
Luna in Etruria, where it was obtained.7 The
same marble, now quarried at Carrara, a few
I From XiXvoc, a lamp.-Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 4, 2.
2 Strabo, x., p. 711.
3 Prop. iii., 9, 16; Quinct., ii., 19.
4 Pind., Nem., iv., 131.
5 Theocr., vi., 38; Clarke's Trav., vol. vi., p. 133.
6 Plato, De Leg., xii., 7.
7Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 4, 2.




104  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
miles distant from its ancient source, is the one
chiefly used by modern sculptors, and furnished
the material for some fine specimens of ancient
art likewise, as the Antinous of the Capitol and
the Belvidere Apollo, according to Jameson,
Dolomieu, and other mineralogists, though Dr.
Clarke thinks them to be Parian marble.1
The Pentelican marble, which Theophrastus
names next after the Parian, was obtained from
Mount Pentelicus, not far from Athens, and
many of the finest works executed there during
the administration of Pericles are of this material. The Theseum and the Parthenon were
built entirely of it, as was also the temple of
Ceres at Eleusis;2 but, being less homogeneous
than the Parian marble, and consequently more
liable to decomposition, the works executed in
it do not, like those in Parian marble, retain
the mild lustre of their original polish.
The Chian marble, which stands third in
Theophrastus, was sometimes, as we may, from
what Pliny says, infer, diversified with colored
Trav., vol. vi., p. 136.
The author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century" says
the Belvidere Apollo "is now universally recognized to be
of Italian marble."
2 Clarke's Travels, vol. vi., p. 135, seq.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  105
spots;1 and from another passage in the same
author, read correctly, it appears that the Lucullean marble also, which was of a uniform
black, came from Chios;2 and this pure black
marble is indeed the kind most commonly
spoken of as Chian, though it is not improbable
that the island produced marble of several different sorts.
Beckmann thinks3 that Theophrastus, by the
carbuncle (acvOpa'KLov) of Chios,4 meant this
well-known black marble, which from its resemblance to an extinguished coal was designated by this name, as the ruby was from its
resemblance to one burning; and of this marble he supposes to have been made the mirrors
mentioned by Theophrastus, and that Pliny5
misinterprets him in stating they were of the
avOpa'Kov of Orchomenus. The Thebaic, which
is the only other marble that Theophrastus
names, is not mentioned by Pliny, for his Thebaic stone and his Syenites of the Thebais were
not marbles, as we shall hereafter see. Indeed,
1H. N., xxxvi., 5.
2 The true reading appears to be "Chio Insula," instead
of "Nili Insula." See Hardouin on Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 8.
3 H. of I!, iii., 178.     4 De Lapid., c. 61.
5 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 25.




106   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
it is hard to say what the Theban marble of
Theophrastus was, unless perhaps such a compact limestone as that in which the tombs at
Biban-el-Molouk are excavated may, when polished, have been called marble. Champollion,
however, found among the ruins at Sais fragments of white marble " dit de Thebes."'
Pliny deems it unnecessary to describe the
kinds and colors of marbles, seeing they were so
well known, and observes that it is not easy to
enumerate them from their multitude.2 We are
now at a loss to determine even some of those
he has thought fit to specify. We know that
he includes among marbles some stones not
strictly such, as porphyry, basalt, and syenite,
and we are therefore justified in doubting as to
others. Thus the Coraliticus, whose dimensions
never exceeded two cubits,3 would seem not to
have been marble.  If, however, it was, as
some suppose, a snow-white fine-grained marble, which had its name from the River Coralus
in Phrygia, Pliny must mean that it was not
obtained from the quarry in masses of larger
dimensions than those he has assigned to it.
Corri4 thinks it to be the marble now called
1 Lettres d'Egypte, p. 52.  2 H. N., xxxvi., 11.
3 H. N., xxxvi., 13.   4 Piet. Ant., p. 88.




ANCIENT  MINERALO GY.   107
palombino and colombino, of which are formed
the cinerary vases numbered 1178, 1565 in the
Galleria de' Candelabri of the Vatican. The
Alabandicus, which "liquatur igni, ac funditur
in usum vitri,"' is thought by some to have
been marble used as a flux in making glass,
while others have, supposed it to be manganese.2
The Lacedamonian green marble, which
Pliny classes with the most precious, was quarried at Tvanarus, and the verde antico is by
some supposed to be the same.3 Dr. Clarke
says, " The Lacedaemonian was one variety of
the verde antico, but it was green and black
instead of green and white."4  He finds the locality of the true verde antico in the defile of
Tempe, on the side of Mount Ossa. He considers it the same with the marmor Atracium,
so called from the city of Atracia, near which
it was quarried. This is the opinion which
Corsi also has adopted.5 Bruce speaks of quarries of what he terms verde antico near Cosseir
on the Red Sea.6
Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 13.
2 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 60.
3 Winck., Storia delle Arti del Dis., vol. i., p. 23; Sext.
Empir. Op., p. 34, and the authors there cited by H. Stephens.                  4 Trav., vol. vii., p. 361.
5 Piet. Ant., p. 94.   6 Trav., vol. i., c. 8.




108    ANCIENT  MINERA.LOGY.
There are Egyptian green and white marbles still known, which are taken to be those
Pliny calls Augustum and Tiberium. The
ophites, with which Pliny compares them, is
called in later writers Egyptian ophite, green
Egyptian marble, and Egyptian green. It is
by some regarded as a variety of common serpentine. Others describe it more accurately
as a mixture of reddish-brown common serpentine, leek and pistachio green precious serpentine, white granular foliated limestone, and
small portions of diallage.1
Of ophites there are three varieties specified
by Dioscorides:2 one black and heavy, a second ash-colored and spotted, the third containing white lines. The first was perhaps green
porphyry, the ophites of Waller,3 the second
talc, and the third the kind just now described.
Pliny seems to have in view the first two of
these three varieties when he says there are
two kinds of ophites, the one soft and white,
the other dark-colored and hard.   He after1 Jameson's Min., i., 154. This appears to be the stone
described by Winckelmann under the name of Egyptian breccia. See Stor. delle Arti del Dis., vol. i., p. 89.
2 Lib. v., c. 162.  3 Waller's Syst. Min., i., 430.
4 H. N., xxxvi., 11.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   109
ward speaks of a mortar for the physician's use
made of the white ophite, and adds, " est enim
hoc genus ophitis ex quo vasa etiam et cados
faciunt;"' and so they do at this day in Germany, but more commonly of a dark-colored
serpentine.
When luxury and the rage for building were
at their height in Rome, every accessible region of the earth was ransacked for materials,
and from the continent and islands of Greece,
from Numidia and Egypt, from Phrygia and
other parts of the coast of Asia Minor, the
finest marbles were procured.2  Among these
were celebrated the Hymettian, from Mount
Hymettus in Attica, the Carystian, from Eubcea, the white marbles of Cappadocia and Thasos, the black of Lesbos, and the marbles of
Numidia, a country which, as Pliny asserts,
produced nothing whatever remarkable except
marble and wild beasts.3  That quarried near
Synnada in Phrygia, resembling alabaster in
its variegated appearance, was much used at
Rome in Strabo's time, and slabs and columns
of extraordinary size and beauty were brought
H. N., xxxvi., 43.
2 See Hor., Od., ii., 18; Juven., Sat. xiv., 89; Stat.,
Theb., i., 144.                H. N., v., 2.




110   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
from that great distance.' It is natural, therefore, that among the ruins of Roman architecture should be found marbles of which the
quarries are no longer known, and which are
therefore designated as antique. Such are the
verde antico, the rosso antico, the giallo antico,
the bianco e nero antico,2 besides others.
The porphyrites quarried in the Thebaid3
was no doubt the same stone elsewhere called
pyropcecilus, pyrrhopoecilus, Syenites, lapis
Thebaicus, etc. It derived the first name from
its prevailing roseate tint, the next two from
the fiery or the ruddy spots with which it
was diversified, and was called Syenites and
lapis Thebaicus from its being quarried near
Syene, on the northern border of the Thebaid.
The name sienite is now used to designate a
rock which differs from granite in the substitution of hornblende for mica, but " it is plain
that the Roman naturalist meant to designate by this term (Syenites) the common red
granite found in abundance about Syene."4
Strabo, p. 577.
2 Dr. Clarke says the bianco e nero antico is an aggregate
of dark diallage and white feldspar found in Macedonia.Trav., vol. vii., pref., p. 18, and vol. viii., p. 15.
3 Euseb., de Mart. Palaest., c. 8.
4 Hamilton's AEgyptiaca, p. 8, note.




ANCIENt MINERALOGY.   111
This material was profusely used in ancient
Egypt in the construction or adornment of
public edifices, in statuary, especially that of
colossal size, and in forming those obelisks described by Pliny,' and still gazed at with wonder in Egypt or at Rome, in which city there
remain at this day more of them perhaps than
in all the world besides, Egypt, even, included.
This stone is rightly classed by Winckelmann with granite, of which he says Egypt
furnished two varieties, one red and whitish,
of which are formed these obelisks and many
statues-as three of large size in the Capitoline
museum —the other white and black, peculiar,
as he thinks, to Egypt, and of which there is
a statue of Isis in the same museum, and a
large figure of Anubis in the Villa Albani.2
Pliny speaks of fine works of art in Egyptian
basalt also, and of these likewise some have
found their way to Rome, as the lions at the
base of the ascent to the Capitol and the sphinx
of the Villa Borghese. Of this stone also
Winckelmann distinguishes two kinds: the
black, which is the more common sort, is the
H. N., xxxvi., 13.
2 Winck., Stor. delle A. del Dis., vol. i., p. 85; vol. ii.,
p. 13.




112  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
material of the figures just now mentioned; the
other variety has a greenish hue.' This black
basalt is the 2Ethiopic stone of Strabo, who
speaks of it as used for making mortars. For
statues of the Nile, which flows through lEthiopia, this was considered the most suitable material, though white marble was used to represent'~other rivers.2 That famous statue of the
Nile which Vespasian dedicated in the Temple
of Peace was formed accordingly of this substance.3
The stone which Pliny describes as possessing the hardness of marble, white, and translucent, and thence called phengites,4 is supposed
to have been selenite.5 Of this stone Nero
built a temple of Fortuna Seia, within which,
c" when the doors were closed, there remained
the light of day, which seemed not transmitted,
as through the specular stone, but, as it were,
I Winck., Stor. delle A. del Dis., vol. i., p. 85; vol. ii.,
p. 13.                     2 Paus., Arcad., p. 647.
3 Plin., H. N., v., 9. The sharp AEthiopic stone, which
Herodotus (ii., 85) says was used in the process of embalming, to. lay open the bodies of the dead, was probably flint,
since many knives of that material taken from the tombs of
Thebes are preserved in European collections. (Wilk., Anc.
Egypt., iii., 262.)        4 From ogyyoc, splendor.
5 Jam. Min., ii., 241.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 113
inclosed within the walls."' Hardouin, in his
note upon this passage, says the Church of St.
Miniat in Florence -is lighted in like manner
by windows of selenite fifteen feet in height.2
And it was thus, as Beckmann thinks, that selenite was used in the Temple of Fortune; the
openings in the walls were closed, and not the
whole building constructed with it.3 Domitian, that he might be able to see what was done
behind his back, lined with this same substance
a gallery in which he used to walk.4
The tophus of Virgil5 and Pliny6 was a calcareous tufa, which, in some places a firm and
durable material for building, was elsewhere, as
Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 46.
2 Hardouin has probably adopted this misstatement from
Fontani, who says of this church, " Cinque finestre d'antica
maniera comunicano meno sfacciata luce al presbiterio, essendo ornati con specchi di fengite, ossia pietra specolare."
(T. i., p. 64.) The fact is that these five windows (if such
they can be called) ara filled not with selenite, but with a
variegated substance looking more like marble than alabaster, of which the whiter portions are in some degree translucent, it is true, but transmit exceeding little light.  The
church receives what light it has from small glazed windows,
placed at a considerable height.
3 Hist. of Inv., iii., 175.
4 Suet., in Vita Domit., c. 14.    5 Georg., ii., 214.
6 H. N., xxxvi., 48; xvii., 4.
H




114   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
at Carthage, of so spongy and friable a nature
that it could not without some protection bear
exposure to the weather, so that the Carthaginians, who had no other building material,
used to coat their walls with pitch. A variety
of calcareous tufa, which, though lighter than
Parian marble, resembled it in hardness and in
color, was called by the Greeks 7rwpoc or 7rwpLvoc X'0o., as it is by Pliny also when translating from Theophrastus.l Of this stone were
constructed the temple of Jove at Elis,2 and
that of Apollo at Delphi,3 except that the roof
of the former was of Pentelican and the front
of the latter of Parian marble. Indeed, porus
seems to have been as usual a building material in Greece as the like substance, travertino (lapis Tiburtinus), was in Italy;4 and these
varieties of calcareous tufa were the first stones
upon which the statuaries of Greece and Italy
exercised their art.5 The famous Belvidere
Torso in the Vatican Museum, the work of
Apollonius, is of this marmor porinum, a finegrained variety of calcareous tufa. The stone
1 H. N., xxxvi., 28.         2 Paus., p. 397.
3 Herod., v., 62.
* See Winck., Stor. delle Arti del Dis., vol. i,, p. 22.
5 Ibid.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   115
now commonly called tufo in Italy, and much
used as a building material, is a volcanic production of a wholly different kind.l  The lapis
Tiburtinus, classed by Vitruvius2 and Pliny,3
as it generally is, with tufa, some have preferred to regard as a compact limestone.4 It is
sometimes so compact as to be well fitted for
statuary, and susceptible of a fine polish-witness the salamanders on the front of the Church
of S. Luigi de' Francesi in Rome. The travertino of Civita Vecchia, near the Terme Taurine, resembles Carrara marble. Of this plentiful material, travertino, are the ruins of Paestum, and, in Rome, the Coliseum, St. Peter's,
and numerous churches and other buildings,
ancient as well as modern. In Strabo's time,
indeed, the greater part of Rome was of v7rpos,
or of travertino.5
It is a stony concretion, often of a spongy
nature, and is deposited very abundantly from
the waters of the Teverone. In the quarries
of it fresh stone forms, in which tools are someCorsi, Piet. Ant., p. 72.    2 Vitruv., ii., 7.
3 H. N., xxxvi., 48.
4 That it was, however formed, a limestone, we should
know from Palladius, who speaks of it as capable of being
burned to lime.                 5 Strabo, v., 238.




116   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
times found imbedded.' There is an example
of a like extensive formation of tufa near
Guanca Velica in Peru, where a warm spring
deposits calcareous earth in such abundance
as to constitute quarries, from which building
materials are drawn.2  Limestone of this kind
acquires a great degree of hardness, and it has
been thought that the solidity of Roman masonry is due to the joint use of travertino and
puzzolana, which are found in the same neighborhood.3
That puzzolana, mixed with a small proportion of lime, hardens quickly, even under water, was well known to the ancients. Vitruvius, Pliny, Seneca, and others speak of this property of the pulvis Puteolanus as a curious fact.4
The black sand which Vitruvius calls carbunculus, and supposes to have been produced by
subterranean heat, was probably the black variety of puzzolana, which some mineralogists
regard as altered scoria.
The existence of such subterranean heat Vitruvius thinks is evidenced in various ways, as
Kidd's Min., i., 25.
2 Brongn., T. E. de Min., i., 212.  3 Ibid.
4 See Vitruv., ii., 6; Plin., xxxv., 47; Senec., Nat.
Quvest., iii., 20.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  117
by warm springs, by hot vapors issuing from
hollow mountains, by ancient traditions of the
effects of such heat-effects which, he thinks,
must vary with the nature of the soil; wherefore the same heat produced in Campania the
dust (pulvis) called Puteolanus, and in Etruria
that sand called carbunculus.l The pulvis Puteolanus was obtained from the region round
about Vesuvius, and especially near Baite and
Puteoli, now called Puzzuoli, whence its modern name.
That stone into which earth from the neighborhood of Cyzicus and Cassandria, when immersed in the sea, was changed, as Pliny tells
us,2 as also that along the coast from Oropus to
Aulis, where the earth as far as it was washed
by the waves was converted into rock, may
have been a sort of calcareous tufa, or a calcareous breccia, like that on the coast of Guadaloupe, in which are imbedded human bones.3
There are other instances of similar aggrega1 Vitruv., ii., 6, sub fin. It should be remembered that
Vitruvius wrote before the first eruption of Vesuvius of
which we have any historic record-that by which Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed.
2 Plin., H. N., xxxv., 47.
3 Lyell's Princ. of Geol., vol. iii., p. 336.




118   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
tions from the same cause.  "The delta of the
Rhone has been almost wholly converted into
a solid rock by a calcareous cement."' The
spring in Cnidus which in eight months hardened earth into stone was probably impregnated
with carbonate of lime to such a degree as to
produce effects like those exhibited at Matlock
in England, at Carlsbad in Bohemia, at the hot
baths of St. Philip in Tuscany, or, in ancient
times, near Hierapolis in Phrygia, where, as
Vitruvius informs us,2 was a copious hot spring,
the waters of which, introduced into trenches
cut around gardens and vineyards, deposited a
crust of stone-a property of which the inhabitants who dwelt thereabout took'advantage in
order to form inclosures for their fields.
Strabo, too, speaks of these waters of Hierapolis, " which were so easily indurated into calcareous tufa (7erpoc) that, by conducting them
through channels, hedges were formed of one
entire stone;,"3 and those who have noticed the
rapid progress and extent of similar formations
at Tivoli and elsewhere in Italy will easily believe this possible.
The silices, of which certain kinds are speciRenwick's Outlines of Geology, p. 34.
2 Vitruv., viii., 3, 10.' Strab., p. 629.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   119
fled by Pliny' as fit to be used in building,
may in some cases have been substances which
we also term silicious; but the more probable
opinion is that the name silices was somewhat
indiscriminately applied to the more compact
and harder stones.
The viridis silex, which so remarkably resisted fire, which was never abundant-a stone
rather than a rock-may perhaps have been
serpentine. No inference to the contrary need
be drawn from Pliny's calling it silex, for he
presently after speaks of lime made " ex silice,"
as Vitruvius also directs that it be burned " de
albo saxo aut silice." It is probable that by
silex in these passages is meant a dark-colored
compact limestone.
The red stone which Pliny,2 after Vitruvius,3
recommends to expose to the weather for two
years before it is used in building, in order that
such stones only may be employed in the superstructure as have been able to abide this
test, may have been a red sandstone, different
varieties of which differ greatly as to their durability when so exposed.4   But it is more
Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 49.  2 Id., ib., xxxvi., 50.
3 Vitruv., ii., 7.
4 Some, as that from Nyack on the Hudson, absorb moist



120  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
probable that they mean the stone procured
from quarries at a place called Saxa Rubra by
the ancients, now Grotta Rossa.l Some beds
of this stone have been explored to a depth of
fifty feet, and new discoveries are constantly
made of ancient excavations. This red stone
is a sort of indurated puzzolana, and consists,
like the Alban stone, of volcanic cinders which
have been diffused in water and deposited in
strata.2  It varies in color, but is commonly of
a dull pale red. Of this reddish tufa are the
Tarpeian rock, the lower part of the steps that
lead up to the temple of Vesta, the columns of
the temple of Hercules Custos within the convent of S. Niccola a' Cesarini, the outer walls
and many of the middle columns of the temple
of Fortuna Virilis. The lapis Albanus, which
Vitruvius is the first to mention, was so called
from its origin, the volcanic craters of the A1ban mountains. It is composed of cinders and
pebbles that have become indurated into a solid
ure and fall to pieces, while others, as that from Newark on
the Passaic, become harder by exposure to the weather.
I See Livy, ii., 49; Tacit., Hist., iv., 79; Cic., Philip.
ii., 31; Aur. Vict. de Coos., c. xl., 23; Strabo, lib. v. This
last-named author says the Anio flows near the quarries of
Tiburtine and Gabian stones, and that called Red.
2 Corsi, Piet. Ant., p. 71.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  121
mass. Its Italian name, peperino, is derived
from the resemblance which some of-the various matters disseminated through it bear to
grains of pepper. No ancient building of this
material has withstood the effects of time, but
there are statues, basins of fountains, vases, and
various other things formed of it, that still remain in a good state of preservation.  The
much-admired sarcophagus of Luc. Corn. Scipio
Barbatus, in the first chamber of the Museo
Pio Clementino, is of this Alban stone.l The
lapis Gabinus, now called sperone, derived its
name from its quarries being near the Lake of
Gabinus, now called Lago di Castiglione, the
crater probably of the volcano to which it owed
its origin. It is commended by Tacitus as well
resisting fire.2 It is harder than the Alban
stone, as containing a greater proportion of
pebbles and silicious fragments than of cinders.
Of this material are formed the arch of the
Cloaca Maxima, the Tabularium of the Capitol, and the Arco de' Pantani, as it is called, a
part of the Forum of Nerva.3  A still harder
volcanic stone was the lapis Anitianus, mentioned by Vitruvius,4 if, at least, that was the
Corsi, p. 67.   2 Ann., xv., 43, Pref., i., iHit.
3 Corsi, 1. 70.  4 Vitruv., i., 7.




122 ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
granitic lava now called manziana - a corruption, as Corsi supposes, of its ancient
name.'
The silex Tusculanus spoken of by Pliny,2
and alluded to by Vitruvius,3 was probably
the basaltic lava formed by the volcano of
which Lake Regillus, comprehended within the
Tusculan territoryj is regarded as the crater.
With this stone were paved the Viao Sacra,
Ostiensis, Aurelia, Appia, and others.4
Pliny specifies various kinds of sand used in
sawing marble, of which the best were the
]Ethiopic and the Indian. Of sand used in
making mortar he afterward distinguishes three
sorts-fossil, river, and sea sand (fossitia, fluviatilis, and marina); and in relation to the former he has a brief geological remark, which
seems borrowed from Vitruvius, who says that
fossil sand is not wanting in the parts of Italy which lie west of the Apennine Mountains; but that beyond them, toward the Adriatic Sea, there is none found, and that in
Achaia, in Asia, and, in fine, throughout the
countries beyond sea, it is not even named.
This assertion, however, Philander, Scamozzi,
Piet. Ant., p. 73.     2 H. N., xxxvi., 18.
i Vitruv., i., 7.       4 Corsi, p. 74.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 123
and other commentators on Vitruvius say is incorrect.'
OF SALINE SUBSTANCES MENTIONED BY
THE ANCIENTS.
Notwithstanding Beckmann's learned and
labored argument to prove the ancients unacquainted with our alum, and that the salt called
by them alumen was a native sulphate of iron,2
there are some who still think that the manufacture of alum must have been known at a
much earlier period than he assigns for its first
introduction,3 or else that it was found native
in Egypt, Melos, Lipari, and elsewhere, in sufficient quantity for the purposes to which it was
anciently applied.
We know that the ancients, without much
discrimination, often called by the same name
substances widely different in their nature, but
which in certain points bore some resemblance
to each other; and it is probable the arvwrrlpia
of the Greeks, called alumen by the Romans,
may in some instances have been sulphate of
iron, or some other vitriolic salt besides what
1 Vitruv., ii., 6, and annotations thereon.
2 Beck., Hist. of Inv., i., 288.
3 See Parke's Chem. Essays, vol. i., IP. 625.




124 ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
we call alum; but that this too, or a salt very
nearly resembling it, was sometimes meant
seems certain.
Some of the properties ascribed to alumen
belong to our alum, but not in the least to sulphate of iron. Thus Dioscorides says' of the
fibrous variety, which he terms aXTar2, that
it is exceeding white (XEvicK a`yav), and from
Pliny's description of this kind2 we may infer
that it was such. an efflorescence as that called
plume, or fibrous alum, found in considerable
quantity in cavities and fissures of the earth at
Solfatara near Naples, and at La Tolfa, in alumstone.3 Pliny, too, speaks of alum as whiteas used for whitening wool-as being prepared
for certain medicinal uses by burning it in pans
until it cease to flow liquid —all which is quite
inapplicable to sulphate of iron.   The modern
alum of commerce generally contains more or
less sulphate of iron,5 and the alumen of the
ancients, whether native or prepared according
to their unskillful methods, may have contained
so much of the same impurity occasionally as
Dioscor., v., 123.       2 H. N., xxxv., 52.
3 Cleav. Min., p. 227.
4 Vide Mill. in Celsum, lib. iv., c. 18.' Cleav. Min., p. 229.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   125
to blacken when mixed with the juice of the
pomegranate or with galls.' Besides, they may
have confounded with alumen what by some of
the earlier mineralogists of modern times was
called hair-salt, and supposed to be a variety
of alum, but which analysis has shown to be a
mixture of the sulphates of magnesia and iron.2
As this is called by Kirwan hair-salt,3 so
Dioscorides applies to a certain variety of arv7rrnpia a corresponding name, ptXtT1rc.4  Of the
many varieties which he says there were, he has
specified three as used in medicine: the fibrous
or separable (raXtarr), the round (oaroyyivXn),
and the moist (7yp&a). The aXtari may be rightly denominatedfibrous, since he says it greatly
resembled a certain stone, which might be distinguished from it, however, as possessing no
astringent taste; and this stone, we afterward
discover, was amianthus.5 This comparison,
altogether unsuitable if we suppose  rv7r7rnpfa
aXlar% to be sulphate of iron, is perfectly just
as applied to what has been in modern times
called fibrous alum, which is " composed of capillary crystals or fibres, white, silky, parallel to
Plin., H. N., xxxv., 52.  2 Cleav. Min., p. 227.
3 Kirwan's Min., ii., 13.  4 Dioscor., v., 123.
5 Dioscor., v., 156.




126  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
each other,"' while "the fibres of amianthus
are usually straight, almost always parallel,
have in most cases a silky lustre, and their color white."2
In the island Milo are found, mingled with
fibrous gypsum in volcanic rocks, fine specimens of what till lately was thought fibrous
alum,3 but which appears upon analysis to be a
sulphate of alumina containing accidental portions of potash, soda-alum, sulphates of magnesia, iron, and copper.4 This island is mentioned
very particularly by Dioscorides as a locality
of arvrrrnpia, and Pliny observes that the best
alumen of a certain kind was that called Melinum, from the island Melos,5 having before
said of the substance generally that, after the
Egyptian, the most approved was found in
Melos. There can be little doubt, therefore,
that the alumen of the ancients comprehended
at least this sulphate of alumina, or rather that
this is the substance generally meant by the
Cleav. Min., p. 227.   2 Ib., p. 405.   3 Ib., p. 227.
4 See Amer. Jour. of Science and Art, No. xlvi., p. 38g.
Klaproth, however,' found the requisite proportion of potash
in the alum of the Grotta di Alume, at Cape Miseno, near
Naples, "where nature alone," he says, " unassisted by art,
is constantly producing perfect alum." (Min., i., 266.)
5 Plin., xxxv., 52.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  127
words oTv7rrn1pfa and alumen; for the islands
of Lipari and Milo, where the sulphate of alumina is still produced in considerable abundance, were in the times of Diodorus Siculus and
Pliny the chief sources of alumen.l
The alum mines of Milo, one of which Tournefort examined, would appear from his description2 to have been capable of furnishing
no inconsiderable quantity; but when Diodorus wrote, it seems the supply from this quarter, whatever it may have been, was of small
account in comparison with that derived from
Lipari, which island, he remarks, contained the
celebrated mines of alum (aTv7r7npc'aV) whence
the Lipareans and the Romans drew large revenues; for, enjoying a monopoly of a substance
much used, and nowhere else produced, except
in small quantity in Melos only, and raising
the price at pleasure, their profits were to an
amount incredible.3  Of Egypt, mentioned by
Pliny as a locality of alumen, Diodorus takes
no notice, but Herodotus relates that Amasis
sent to the people of Delphi, as his contribuSee Penny Mag., vol. iii., p. 191, respecting the abundance of native alum in Milo.
2 Letter iv., vol. i., p. 128, 129 of Eng. trans.
3 Diod. Sic., v., 10.




128   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
tion toward the building of their temple, a
thousand talents of this mineral,' which may
have been derived from the neighborhood
of. Syene, where native alum is at this day
found.
The kind which Dioscorides and Pliny call
-rpoyyvAX, or round, may have been such concretions or small fibrous masses of native alum
as are occasionally found, or rather, perhaps,
aluminite, or subsulphate of alumina, which occurs in roundish or reniform masses, and, possessing some properties in common with alum,
would, like hair-salt, have been readily confounded with it. Some of the characters of
that called  yp a, or moist, by Dioscorides agree
well enough with those of stone or mountain
butter, as Kirwan, Werner, Jameson, and others term a certain variety of native alum. If
we must, with Pliny,3 call it liquid,-it may
have been a strong solution of the native salt,
found occasionally in cavities formed in aluminous slate, or in clays embracing the sulphuret of iron.
By chalcitis, " a stone from which copper was
I Herod., ii., 180.
2 Brard, Min. appliqude aux Arts, vol. i., p. 309.
3 H. N., xxxv., 52.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  129
melted,"' Pliny no doubt means pyritous copper; but the relation this bears to sulphuret
of iron, (such that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two)2 caused them to be
confounded, and consequently the sulphate of
iron procured from and found associated with
either of these minerals was called XaXKa:vOov,
chalcanthum, flos aeris, copperas; and as the
two ores were easily confounded, we need not
wonder at a like confusion as regards the two
sulphates that are derived from them.; and
again, since the sulphate was sometimes found
associated with the sulphuret of iron, and that
was not distinguished from pyritous copper, we
find the characters and properties of all the
three confounded in one and the same description. Thus Pliny describes3 chalcitis as a stone
from which copper is extracted-meaning pyritous copper; -as soft, friable, and like a downy
concretion-a description applicable to the sulphuret of iron, as it occurs at times in efflorescences, or stalactitical concretions, or in crusts
composed of fibres.  The three kinds into
which he says chalcitis is distinguished, viz.,
brass, and misy, and sory, are again either pyPlin., H. N., xxxiv., 29.    2 Cleav. Min., p. 558.
3 H. N., xxxiv., 29.




130   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
ritous copper or the sulphuret of iron, and the
sulphate of iron in two different states. When
he says it has veins of brass, and is most approved when of the color of honey, and with
delicate branching veins, friable, not stony, he
seems to describe that sulphuret of iron which
occurs in membranes or dendritic branches embraced between layers of other minerals.
The styptic and caustic properties which
Dioscorides assigns to chalcitis belonged of
course to the vitriolic salts derived from it.'
The sulphate of iron becomes from exposure
yellow, and at last brown, and in these states
probably answers to the misy and sory of Dioscorides and Pliny.3  Some of the characters
which they ascribe to these substances might,
indeed, lead to a belief that they were varieties
of pyrites, did we not know how apt these
writers were to fall into the confusion of ideas
and terms that has just been mentioned. That
misy was what has been called Roman vitriol,
or yellow copperas, seems unquestionable,3 and
it is expressly so named by Democritus,4 who
Dioscor., v., 115.
2 Kidd's Min., ii., 22; Jam. Min., ii., 343.
3 See Hardouin on Pliny, vol. ix., p. 320.
4 As cited by Saumaise-Exercit. Plin., p. 815, a AB.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  131
says that sory (o'pu) is always found in misy
(yauv), and that this latter is called yellow copperas (XXwpo&c xaXiCav0oc).
Of the melanteria, or ink-stone, Dioscorides
remarks that "some have taken it to be the
same with sory, from which it is distinct, though
not unlike."' It was probably a sulphate of
iron formed in a matrix containing vegetable
astringent matter, by union with which was
produced a natural ink.
Chalcanthum, which appears to have been
so named for the reasons above stated, rather
than, as some suppose, because of the brassyellow color of the mineral from which it was
obtained, was otherwise called atramentum sutorium, from its being used to blacken leather.
Pliny, describing a process by which it was
made, says that upon cords suspended in the
vats containing water impregnated with it
there accumulated vitreous clusters of a remarkable lustre, and adds, "vitrumque esse
creditur."2  Hence are derived our terms vitriol and'vitriolic.
That the Xc iaywovlasoc, sal ammoniac of
Dioscorides, Celsus, and Pliny,3 was not our
Dioscor., v., 119.      2 H. N., xxxiv., 32.
3 See Dioscor., v., 126; Cels., 66; Plin., H. N., xxxi., 39.




132  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
sal ammoniac, the chloride of ammonium, but
rock salt, seems to have been sufficiently proved
by Beckmann;' but his learned examination
of this subject has not rendered it equally certain that the ancients were unacquainted with
the chloride of ammonium.  The rock salt
designated as ammoniac was brought through
Egypt, from as far, says Pliny, as the oracle of
Hammon, where Arrian states that it was dug,
a native fossil salt (aXEc aV'opuaot oPVK70To);2
and when afterward the chloride of ammonium
canme to be manufactured in Egypt this received the same name. Athenaeus speaks of
sal ammoniac and water of the Nile sent from
Egypt to the King of Persia, as though they
were both alike intended for the use of the table.3 The Tragesaean salt, mentioned by the
same author,4 appears to have been obtained
from salt springs in the Troad, which Strabo
calls Tpa-yera'ov aXlo7ra yov.5  It has been
thought, however, by some modern mineralogists that the ancients knew chloride of ammoI Hist. of Inv., iv., 360, seq.
2 De Exped. Alex., lib. iii., c. 4.
3 Athen., i., 257.          4 Vol. i., p. 288.
5 See Poll. Onomas., vi., 63; Plin., H.N., xxxi., 7, 41,
and the remarks there of Hardouin.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   133
nium under the name of nitrum; and although
Beckmann maintains the opposite opinion, the
grounds on which he rests his argument do not
always bear him out. He observes that " there
are two properties with which the ancients
might have accidentally become acquainted,
and which in that case would have been sufficient to make known or define to us this salt
(the chloride of ammonium). In the first place,
by an accidental mixture of quick-lime, the
strong smell or unpleasant vapor diffused by
the volatile alkali separated from the acid might
have been observed." Now what Beckmann
seems willing to admit as a criterion of sal ammoniac is mentioned by Pliny of nitrum, which,
he says, sprinkled with lime, gives forth a
powerful odor (calce aspersum reddit odorem
vehementem).2
Beckmann appears to doubt what he says
"C several writers have asserted, that sal ammoniac comes also from the East Indies;"3 but it
certainly is brought thence at this day, and
may have been manufactured there and have
found its way thence to Europe in the time of
Pliny also - for we find that unchangeable
1 See before, p. 21.  2 Plin., H. N., xxxi., 46.
3 Hist. of Inv., iv., 381.




134 ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
country producing the same things then as
now: indigo, Indian ink, fine steel, sugar, silks,
etc.'-since "in India all artificial productions
are of very great antiquity."2  The manufacture of sal ammoniac in Egypt also may, for
aught we know, have been more ancient than
is thought.  We are not justified in concluding
that the ancients were ignorant of every thing
of which we discover no mention in their works.
Beckmann, on no other ground, rejects the
sense put upon the words " usus ad fenestras"
by Lehmann (who supposes Pliny here to
speak of window-frames, to which a certain
pigment was applied), and asserts that "glass
windows were at that time unknown."3  But
now we find in Pompeii glass windows,4 which
we are very sure date as far back as Pliny's
time, since he witnessed the catastrophe that
buried them. One of the chief reasons for
supposing the ancients to have been'ignorant
of our sal ammoniac and nitre is that we know
of few uses to which they might have been apI See before, p. 58, 89; Plin., H. N., xxxii., 17; xxxv.,
25; xxxiv., 41; Virg., Georg., ii., 121.
2 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 118.  3 Ibid., ii., 237.
4 Lib. of Entert. Knowl., Pompeii, i., 155; (Euv. de Chateaubr., t. xiv., p. 163; Lettre de M. Taylor'a M. C. Nodier.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 135
plied. But though they may have had little
inducement to manufacture them, even had
they possessed the art, yet they could hardly
have failed to observe them in a native state,
since both these salts are found occurring thus
in southern Italy and elsewhere.' Beckmann
observes that the ancients were so much inclined to look for medicinal virtue in all natural bodies, there is reason to think they soon
collected and made trial of the nitrous efflorescence sometimes found on walls.2 Is it probable, then, they would neglect the purer nitre
found in such caves as that at Molfetta in the
kingdom of Naples? where, as appears from
Klaproth's account of it, nitre is produced in
great quantity,3 as sal ammoniac is at Solfatara.4 These two salts, therefore, the chloride
of ammonium and the nitrate of potash, may
be included among the varieties of nitrum
spoken of by Pliny, although the greater part
of them no doubt contained in some shape or
other the carbonate of soda, because for the
many and important uses to which that salt
Cleav. Min., p. 122-124, 125.
2 Hist. of Inv., iv., 529.
3 Klapr. Min., i., 270; Cleav. Min., p. 124.
4 Brongn., Tr. Elem. de Min., i., 110.




136   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
was anciently applied, great quantities of it
must have been required.
The use of it in washing has been before referred to,l and Pliny mentions a great variety
of purposes in medicine and in the arts for
which it was employed.2  In the manufacture
of glass, according to him, three parts of nitrum were used with one of sand. A prodigious quantity of it must have been consumed
in Egypt, since, according to all three modes
of embalming described by Herodotus, the body
was covered in this substance for the space of
seventy days.3
Athenaeus mentions vtrpov among various
condiments, such as cheese, thyme, cumin, etc.,4
but as drinking-vessels were cleansed with it,5
that may have been the purpose to which it
was destined when found among the supplies
of the table.
Pliny's account of nitrum may supply an instance of the manner in which the ancients frequently distinguished between things essentially the same, because of some accidental difSee ante, p. 21.         2 H. N., xxxi., 46.
3 Herod., lib. ii., c. 86-88. Nitrum was obtained from
the natron lakes in great abundance.
4 Athen., i., 262; ii., 77.  5 Ib., xi., 108.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   137
ference, and comprehended under one name
things essentially different, because they happened to resemble each other in something accidental.  We  can  not, therefore, observe
strictly Beckmann's rule, " that those who wish
to explain the old names of natural objects
must relate every thing said of them, and not
that alone which is favorable to their opinion,"'
since we find ancient authors predicating of a
name qualities that can not be combined in any
one natural object; and Beckmann himself has
before observed2 that, "not being acquainted
with any accurate method of separating and distinguishing salts, it need excite no wonder that
they should ascribe to their nitrum properties
which could not possibly be united in a salt."
The melitites lapis of Pliny3 is supposed by
some to be borax, the biborate of soda,4 which
may serve as our excuse for considering it and
the minerals related to it under this head of
saline substances. Dioscorides describes it as
precisely like galactites, except that it emitted
a sweeter juice;5 and of galactites he says that
it was of an ashen color, sweet taste, and yield1 Hist. of Inv., iv., 534.  2 Ibid., iv., 531.
3 H.'N., xxxv., 33.     4 Kidd's Min., ii., 10.
5 Dioscor., v., 151.




138   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
ed a milky juice.' This last the commentators
understand to mean simply that its trace was
white,2 though the language of the description
and the names of these related minerals would
seem to indicate something more.
Another substance closely related to melitites and galactites was morochthus, by some
called galaxias, and by others XEvK,6pastc.
This was found in Egypt, soft, easily soluble,
and used in whitening linen.3  It may be gathered from Dioscorides and Pliny, with the authors cited in the notes of Hardouin, that galaxias, galactites, morochthus, moroxus, morochites, leucogaoa, leucographia, leucographis,
and synophites differed in little except name,
or were in fact varieties of the same substance,
which came either from the Nile or the Achelous; was ash-colored, or greenish, or leekcolored, sometimes with red and white veins;
was readily soluble, and when rubbed on stone
or a rough garment left a white mark; besides
which, when dissolved, or when triturated in
Dioscor., v., 150.
2 Vide Jani. Anton. Sarac. scholia in Dioscor., v., 152,
et Hardouin annot. in Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 63.
See Dioscor., v., 152, and Hardouin on Plin., xxxvii.,
c. 59, 63.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  139
water, it appears to have resembled milk in
color and in taste. The thyitis-stone of Dioscorides appears to be still much the same thing
under a different name. It was found in JEthiopia, was greenish, resembling jasper, and when
dissolved had a milky look.l
Now, minerals that answer the above description tolerably well are Spanish chalk and certain other varieties of talc, which are found of
the colors indicated, may be mixed with and
held suspended in water, so as to give it a
milky appearance and a smooth, sweetish taste,
and which, moreover, make a white mark when
rubbed iuon stone or cloth. It is from this
property that those names leucogaa, leucographia, and leucographis are derived; and, supposing the mineral in question to have been
talc, another of its names, synophites, that is,
the associate of ophites, would be very naturally accounted for-the ancient ophites comprehending three different minerals, one of which
appears to have been magnesian, and closely
related to what is now called serpentine.2  It
is possible, however, that the substances we
are considering were no more of mineral nature
than were those which Strabo speaks of as
l Dioscor., v., 154.   2 See before, p. 108.




140   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
among the wonderful productions of India"stones dug in that country, of the color of
frankincense, sweeter than figs or honey;"' for
these supposed stones were, in all probability,
nothing else than sugar, of the nature of which
Strabo, or those from whom he adopts his description, may easily have been ignorant, though
Pliny was so far acquainted with saccharon
that he describes it as a honey procured from
reeds, white, resembling gum, friable under the
teeth, never larger than a filbert, and used only
in medicine.2
OF COMBUSTIBLE MINERALS MENTIONED BY
THE ANCIENTS.
Oov, Sulphur, was applied by the ancients
to various uses in medicine and other arts. For
the use of the physician was required translucent native sulphur, which the Greeks termed
a7rvpov. That which had been freed from impurities by an artificial process-which had
passed the fire-was called 7rsrvpWS/avov, and
distinguished into various kinds, appropriated
to various uses, according probably to their
l Strabo, p. 703.
2 H. N., xii., 17. He describes the sugar-candy still
commonly used in India.     3 Dioscor., v., 124.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   141
several degrees of purity. Thus one kind was
used for fumigating woolens, to render them
more white and soft; another for making
matches-purposes to which sulphur yet continues to be applied. The use of it in expiation and lustration, which was very common,
we find referred to by many ancient authors.'
"AaoaX~ros, Bitumen, in various states, from
that of fluid, transparent naphtha to that of dry,
solid, black asphaltum, was well known and
much used among the ancients.  Semiramis,
we are told, employed it as a cement in building the walls of Babylon,2 for which purpose
it was obtained from the River Is, which discharged itself into the Euphrates about eight
days' journey from Babylon.3 But it was also
found near that city in great abundance, and
in a liquid form,4 while elsewhere, as in Syria,
asphaltum was dug from quarries in a solid
state.5 Its medicinal virtues may be found deSee Hom., Od., X., 481; Theocr., Id. xxiv., v. 94; Ovid,
A. A., lib. ii., v. 330; Juven., Sat. ii., v. 157.
2Diod. Sic., ii., 7; Vitruv., viii., 3, 8.
3 Herod., i., 179.
i Strab., p. 743; Plutarch., vol. i., p. 685, D; Diod. Sic.,
ii., 12; Justin., i., 2; Quint. Curt., v., 1; but see, for a
learned examination of this subject, Parkinson's Organ.
Rem., vol. i., p. 131.        5 Vitruv., viii., 3, 8.




142  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
tailed by Dioscorides' and by Pliny,2 who also
specify various economical uses to which it was
applied. At Agrigentum, they inform us, it
was burned in lamps as a substitute for oil,
and called, in fact, Sicilian oil, but erroneously,
as Dioscorides observes, it being a species of
liquid bitumen (achrapXrov v"ypais.os).
A yellowish naphtha, found near Amiano in
the Dutchy of Parma, has been in like manner
used to light the streets of that city and of
Genoa, and in Persia, also, a like substance is
burned in the place of oil in lamps. A variety
less fluid and transparent, called petroleum, is
applied to the same use in different parts of the
United States, as near Scottsville in Kentucky,
where it was collected from the surface of a
spring of water in sufficient quantity to be sold
at twenty-five cents a gallon.3
The Egyptians used much asphaltum in the
embalming of their dead.
The exceeding inflammable nature of naphtha, and even of its vapor, caused it to be employed by ancient jugglers in their deceptions
with fire; and Plutarch4 and Pliny5 explain
1 Lib. i., c. 99, 100, 101.  2 H. N., xxxv., 51.
3 Cleav. Min., p. 488. See also Haiiy, Min. iii., 224.
4 Vol. i., I). 686, A.     5 H. N., ii., 109.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 143
the story of the bridal dress and crown which
Medea presented to Creiisa, by supposing them
to have been anointed with naphtha, which, as
soon as the princess approached the burning
altar, burst out into flame.
The principal ingredient in the celebrated
Grecian fire is supposed by Klaproth to have
been some variety of asphaltum.'HsXcrpov, Succinum, Amber, was well known
to the ancients many centuries before the age
of Pliny, and various ornamental articles were
made of it, but in his time only for the use of
women.l  In Homer's verse,2
"' XpvaEov oppov SXwv  ard a X6ICT7pOLtLV kepro,"
it is probable that amber beads or ornaments
at the ends of the necklace are meant by the
word njXEK7rOoul. The use of the plural number and the purpose to which the things spoken
of were applied lead us to suppose this rather
than that they were of the alloy called XEcKT7POV.
Amber, according to the common fable, consisted of the tears of those poplars into which
Phaeton's sisters were transformed;3 but Pliny
1. N., xxxvii., 11.       2 Od., v., 460.
3 Dion. Perieg., v. 289, 316.




144   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
has collected a great variety of opinions of different authors as to its origin, its nature, and the
derivation of its name, each one more extravagant than that which had preceded. His own
belief, not differing much from the now received opinion, is that it consists of the resinous
juice of certain trees, which had in course of
time become mineralized in the earth. Hence
was its Latin name succinum derived, " quod
arboris succum prisci nostri credidere."l Its
Greek name, iXEecrpov, was from its resemblance in color to an alloy of gold and silver so
called, or from a name of the sun,'HXE'r0P.
The women of Syria, who ornamented their
spindles with it, called it atra4, because of its
attracting leaves, chaff, and the fringes of their
garments. Pliny says the different colors it
exhibited in its native state were sometimes
produced by artificial means, since they could
dye it of whatever tint they pleased; wherefore it was much used in counterfeiting translucent gems, and especially the amethyst. Demostratus2 called amber lyncurion, supposing it
produced from the urine of the lynx-from
that of the males when of a deeper and more
H. N., xxxvii., 11.
2 As cited by Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 11.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   145
fiery tint, but when feebler and paler of the
other sex. Other writers spoke of lyncurion
as a substance distinct from amber, but having
the origin indicated by its name. As Pliny,
however, doubts' the existence of any such
substance, we might perhaps spare ourselves
the trouble of considering what may have been
the mineral to which so strange an origin has
been assigned. From what Theophrastus says
of it,2 taken in connection with the remarks of
Pliny, it seems highly probable that some variety of amber had been distinguished by the
name XvyIKoviteov.  Theophrastus, it is true,
compares lyncurion with amber, as if it were
something different, though like; but they may,
notwithstanding, have been one and the same
thing, for he evidently speaks on the report of
others, introducing his mention of it with the
phrase "they say" (ol Ze  6acrL). It was engraved, he says, for seals, and that alone may
have led him to ascribe to it the property of
hardness, which would seem inconsistent with
its being amber. He observes that, like amber, it attracts not only chaff and wood, but, as
Diodes asserts, even light particles of brass
and iron. It has been thought belemnite by
H. N., xxxvii., 13.    2 De Lapid., c. 50.
K




146  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
some, tourmaline by others, and by others
again the hyacinth.l The ligure, in the description of the breast-plate (Exod., xxviii., 19),
was probably this stone.
That distinction of sex, according to which
Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancients termed
varieties of the same mineral male or female, as
their color was more or less intense, or as they
possessed in greater or less degree some other
distinguishing property, is rather a fanciful one
when applied to the sard, the cyanus, and others,2 but as regards the lyncurion seems to have
very naturally originated from the difference
of sex in the animals supposed to have produced
its different varieties.
There can be little doubt that the gagates
of Dioscorides3 and Pliny4 is the modern jet,
which with some mineralogists still retains its
ancient name-a name derived from the River
Gagas, in Lycia, about whose mouth this mineral was found.
The Thracian stone, which Nicander5 directs
to be burned together with gagates, sulphur,
Beck., Hist. of Inv., vol. i., p. 141, 142.
2 Theoph., c. 56. Miner. des Gens du Monde, p. 248.
3 Lib. v., c. 146.          H. N., xxxvi., 34.
5 Theriac., v., 45.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  147
bitumen, and other substances which during
their combustion give forth a powerful scent,
in order to drive away serpents, was brought,
as that author and Dioscorides' inform us, from
the Thracian river Pontus. Dioscorides ascribes the same virtues to it as to the gagates,
and he and Pliny2 observe of it, as Nicander
does, that its flame is brightened by water but
extinguished by oil,3 though the two first named
omit to add, when it is burning feebly-a condition which may be inferred from Nicander's
words, " rvrOT v  T' 60aynr1rai."  This property
of being kindled by water and extinguished by
oil, assigned by Dioscorides to asphaltum also,
and by Pliny to gagates, might with about
equal truth be ascribed to our bituminous coal,
with which some naturalists have been disposed
to identify this Thracian stone;4 and, from the
manner in which Aristotle speaks of it,5 they
seem to have good reason for so doing.
Theophrastus, speaking of combustible minerals, says that " some of the more frangible are
1 Lib. v., c. 147.         2 H. N., xxxiii., 30.
3 Theriac., v. 46:
"'H  0' i3a-rt apex0eraa  ceXciaa'erat, ETa'fea'e 6' arjTlv
TVTOiV  T'" ZlouiTn7a' t 7rtpjavOh rov EXalov."
4 See Hill's Theophrastus, Notes, p. 55.
5 De Mirab. Auscult., vol. i., p. 1162.




148  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
broken into coals,l and are more durable; as
those in a mine near Bina, and those which the
river, brings down; for they take fire when
coals are placed upon them, and burn as long
as one continues to blow them, and after they
expire may again be kindled, so that they can
be used for a long time, but their odor is very
strong and disagreeable."2   What place and
river Theophrastus here speaks of is not known.
Hill, upon what authority he does not say, finds
them in Thrace, and supposes the mineral to be
the same with the Thracian stone just now
mentioned.3
Another stone, which occurred in quantity at
the promontory called Erineas, " like that at
Bina, emitted when burned the odor of bitumen, and the result of the combustion resembled calcined earth."4 This was perhaps bituminous limestone, like that found near the
Dead Sea.
If these minerals were neither of them bitu1 Or, according to the conjecture of Saumaise (who for
OpavzrL would read icav'el), "' become coals in burning.',
2 Theoph., c. 23.
3 Hill's Theoph., Notes, p. 54. Stephanus, De Urbibus,
speaks of Benna, a city of Thrace, and of Byna, a city of
Crete. One or the other of these may have been the Bina
of Theophrastus.                4 Theoph., c. 27.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   149
minous coal, there can be little doubt, however,
entertained respecting that which follows; as
to which Theophrastus says that " of frangible
minerals, those called simply coals, because of
the use they serve, are earthy, but are kindled
and burned like coals. They occur in Liguria, as does amber also, and in Elis, as you go
to Olympia by the mountain road. Of these,
smiths make use."l
That mineral coal was known and even used
in the time of Theophrastus these passages
seem to afford sufficient proof. That it was so
little used and spoken of among the ancients
may be accounted for in various ways. The
want of so simple a contrivance as a grate may
have prevented its ordinary use as fuel, or it
may have been neglected from the greater
abundance of other fuel at a period of the world
when so much larger a portion of Europe was
still clothed in forest; besides that, in the then
state of society, and of the industrial arts, and
under the benignant climate of a great part of
Greece, there was less occasion for fuel of any
kind.
Spinus, which Theophrastus classes with comTheoph., c. 28.




150   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
bustible minerals, and of which he says that,
"being taken from the mine, it was cut up,
and put together in the sun, when it took fire
spontaneously, and especially if moistened previously,"' was either pyrites, or (which is more
probable) an aluminous shale like that near
Weymouth, or at Lyme in Dorsetshire.2 Aristotle speaks of this stone called spinus (oI7rtvoc) in like manner, but somewhat less clearly
than Theophrastus does.3 We learn from him,
however, that it was a Thracian mineral; and
that alone, perhaps, has caused it to be by some
confounded with the Thracian stone. Saumaise supposes this spinus to be mineral coal.4
In the case of some substances, a difference
of manners and customs between ancient and
modern times, or the discovery of new properties in the minerals themselves, has caused them
to be used and esteemed very differently by
the ancients and by us. As examples may be
named asbestus and the magnet. The former
is a substance full as well known to us as to the
Theoph., c. 24.
2 See Bakewell's Geology, c. xii., p. 195.
3 Arist., De Mirab. Auscult., vol. i., p. 1153.
4 Exercit. Plin., p. 179, b. D.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   151
ancients; but by them, in consequence of their
often burning the bodies of their dead, and of
the religious care with which they guarded
against the extinction of their sacred fire, it was
applied to peculiar uses.
It probably derived its name, aagmaroc, that
is, unextilnguished, from its being used to form
wicks for the lamps which maintained perpetual fire in many ancient temples. Such lamps
Strabo and Plutarch style aagUara, unextinguished, or perpetual;' and Pausanias speaks
of a golden lamp of this kind, made by Callimachus, an Athenian artist, for Minerva, which,
"though it was kept ever burning, as well by
day as night, was only once a year supplied
with oil, and had a wick made of Carpasian
linen, the only linen which is not consumed by
fire."2 This linen, called Carpasian from Carpasia, a town of Cyprus, was of the same kind
with that described by Strabo as made of the
Carystian stone, an asbestus found at Carystus
in Eubcea;3 napkins of which, he says, were,
when soiled, thrown into the fire and cleansed,
as others are by washing. And it was in con1 See Strab., p. 396; Plut., De Def. Orac., vol. ii., p. 410,
B, 411, C.                 2 Paus., lib. i,, c. 26.
3 Strab., p. 446; Brongn., Tr. Elem. de Min., i., 482.




152   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
sequence of this that the variety of asbestus
suited for such use was called ayiavroc, amianthus, pure, undefiled; because, being indestructible in any ordinary fire, it was restored to its
original purity and whiteness simply by casting it into the flames.' Where amianthus occurs, as it does in many countries, with fibres
sufficiently long and flexible for that purpose,
it is often now, as anciently it was, spun and
woven into cloth, and has in modern times been
successfully manufactured into paper, gloves,
purses, ribbons, girdles, and various other
things. The natives of Greenland even use it
for the wicks of lamps,2 as we have just now
seen that the ancients did.
One of the ancient localities of this mineral
was the island Cyprus, where it is found ".of
a superior quality, as flexible as silk, and perfectly white; finer, and more delicately fibrous
than that of Sicily, Corsica, or Norway."3
There is no sufficient reason for the doubts
which some have entertained, that the asbestine
linen, or linum vivum, spoken of by Pliny, was
of this same material; table napkins of which
that author says he had seen, at an entertainDioscor., v., 158.   2 See Jam. Min., i., 530.
Clarke's Travels, vol. iv., p. 45.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   153
ment, blazing in the fire, and, whatever soiled
them being thus burned out, rendered brighter
than they could have been by water.1 The
funeral dress of kings, he adds, being made of
this material, preserved their remains distinct
from the ashes of the pyre. But he speaks of
it as a rare and costly cloth, the material being
difficult to weave by reason of the shortness of
the fibre. It is true that Pliny adds some fables respecting this linen, but it is not unusual
with him thus to jumble truth and falsehood.
Of amianthus he has elsewhere observed that
it resembles alumen, and remains uninjured in
the fire (alumini similis nihil igni deperdit);2
copying, no doubt, Dioscorides;3 but omitting
the epithet fibrous (rXtrw7i), which his original
has added to alumen, and in which only we
may suppose the resemblance to have lain.
Theophrastus characterizes amianthus better
by comparing it to rotten wood.4
With respect to the magnet, its peculiar property was well known to the ancients many centuries before the Christian era, and is alluded
to by Hippocrates, but merely to designate the
stone, which he prescribes as remediate in a
1 Plin., H. N., xix., 1.  2 Ibid., xxxvi., 31.
3 Dioscor., v., 1.f;6.    4 De Lapid., c. 29.




154    ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
certain case;1 for it was as a remedy only, or
as a charm, that the ancient Greeks used the
magnet, unless we would call a use of it that
strange attempt of Dinochares to construct for
Ptolemy Philadelphus the vaulted roof of a
temple beneath which the statue of his queen,
Arsinoe, should be held suspended in the air.2
It has been asserted that the ancient Greeks,
as far back as Aristotle, possessed some imperfect notion of the polarity of the magnet, and
Majolus cites a lost work of that philosopher to
prove him acquainted with this property.3 If
the fact were so, we might easily discern the
origin of those other notions: of a stone called
Theamedes,4 which repelled instead of attracting iron; and of two mountains near the River
Indus, one of which attracted and the other repelled that metal.5 But there is little ground
for ascribing this knowledge to the ancient
Greeks, and still less reason to believe what
1 Hippocr., Op., p. 686, 1. 46. He describes it as the
stone which forcibly draws iron (X0ov VrTl TOrv atllpov
aat,7raL).               2 Plin., H. N., xxxiv., 42.
3 As to this supposed work of Aristotle, De Lapidibus,
see, besides Majoli Dies Canic., p. 566, Azuni, Dissert. sur
l'Orig. de la Boussole, p. 34.
4 Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 25; Beck., Hist. of Inv., i., 143.
5 Plin., H. N., ii., 98.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   155
some authors have ventured to assert, that
the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians
made use of the magnetic needle in their navigation. It seems, however, to be sufficiently
proved that the polarity of the magnet and the
use of the magnetic needle were known to the
Chinese at a very early period, many centuries
even before the Christian era.1
As one and the same mineral sometimes received among the ancients different names, according as it was procured by different methods, from different places, or from substances
apparently unlike, so, on the other hand, things
of dissimilar nature were called by the same
name, merely because of some accidental agreement in color, place of origin, or use to which
they were applied. Thus the name magnet
was given not only to what we call the native
magnet, magnetic oxyde of iron, but to a substance wholly different, and which appears to
have been some variety of talc. It is highly
probable that these two minerals, so different
in character, were both denominated the magSee this question examined in the Dissertation of Azuni
just now cited. See Lettre a M. le Baron de Humboldt sur
l'Invention de la Boussole, par M. I. Klaproth; or Silliman's
Journal, vol. xl., p. 242; or Cosmos, vol. i., p. 180.




156   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
netic stone, from their being both found in a
country called Magnesia; for of the five localities specified by Pliny, whence as many varieties of magnet were obtained, one is Magnesia
in Thessaly, and another a city of Asia bearing
the same name. And it was here, he says, a
magnet was found, of a whitish color, somewhat
resembling pumice, and not attracting iron;'
which, taken in connection with what Theophrastus says of the magnet, that it was suited
for turning in the lathe and of a silvery appearance,2 leads to the inference that this magnet
was talc, a certain variety of which, as it well
resists the fire, and is otherwise fitted for such'purpose, was employed anciently for forming
culinary vessels, as it still continues to be in
certain countries where it occurs in sufficient
quantity and of the proper kind.3 This mineral contains in large prop9rtion the earth called
magnesia, a name of which we may thus trace
the origin; though, perhaps, a much purer form
than this talc affords of the earth now called
magnesia may have been sometimes designated
as the magnesian stone. For when Hippocrates
prescribes4 the use of it (rT Muayvnclr)s X[Oov)
H. N., xxxvi., 25.        2 Theoph., c. 73,
Cleav, Min., p. 442,      4 Page 543,1. 27.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  157
as a cathartic, it seems probable that he meant
the native carbonate of magnesia, which is occasionally found in an earthy, as well as in every intermediate state between that and the
most compact. He certainly does not intend
the magnet; as well because it is not purgative,
as because he elsewhere' describes that differently, as the stone which draws iron, and, moreover, would have named it, not the Magnesian,
but the Heraclean stone.
The story of the discovery of the magnet by
one Magnes, a shepherd, on Mount Ida, who
found his hob-nailed shoes and iron-pointed
staff cling to the rock upon which he trod,
seems to be a poetical fiction, derived by Pliny
from Nicander.
The better derivation, just before suggested,
is the one which Lucretius has adopted for the
mineral:
Quem magneta vocant, patrio de nomine Graii,
Magnetum quia sit patriis in montibus ortus.2
Indeed, it appears that in the case of this
mineral, as in that of nitre already mentioned,
the ancient name, formerly applied to distinct
substances, has been retained by us in connecI See before, p. 154.
2 Lucr., De Nat. Rerum, vi., 808.




158  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
tion with that one to which it was least appropriate; for the name magnet or magnetic stone
belonged properly to the Magnesian mineral
just now spoken of; while the mineral by us
called magnet was, by the ancients, more appropriately called the Heraclean stone, from
Heraclea, a city of Lydia.' The name magnetic stone (fuayviric XiOoc) was given to it,
as to some other minerals, simply because they
occurred in Magnesia, and was extended afterward to certain substances that bore resemblance to these Magnesian minerals, without
regard to their localities. Thus the magnes
lapis spoken of by Pliny2 as used in making
glass was probably manganese, which had received that name from its resemblance to magnetic iron ore; for which it was mistaken, not
only by Agricola and Kircher, but even at a
later period.3
As the loadstone was sometimes confounded,
in name at least, with steatite, because like that
brought from Magnesia, so was it, from its be1 See Hesych.,  pacXEia XMoc. Plato speaks of the wondrous phenomena exhibited in the attraction of amber and
the Heraclean stones (rd Oavta2o6Eva iMXiiKrpWV 7rEpt rifg
X'AEog Icai rdiv'paKcitwv XtOwv) in Timceo, v., 7, p. 88, edit.
Tauch. See, also, Io, c. 5, a very remarkable passage.
2 H. N., xxxvi., 66.    3 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 59.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   159
ing found in Lydia, confounded' also with another wholly different Lydian mineral, the basanite, or touchstone, designated as the Lydian
stone (lapis Lydius) because the best were obtained from the channel of the Tmolus, a Lydian stream. These Lydian stones were rolled
pieces of silicious slate, which Theophrastus
describes as resembling a smooth flat pebble,
about twice as big as the largest counter (~40,oc).2 According to Pliny they were of moderate size, not exceeding four inches in length
by two in breadth. The same substance, however, was found in large masses, and there remain some remarkable ancient statues formed
of it, as those two of captive kings in the Capitol at Rome. Pliny calls this stone coticula,
but observes that by some it is called the Heraclean and by others the Lydian stone.3  In
his time it was found in various other places
besides the bed of the Tmolus. From what he
and Theophrastus say about the mode of using
it, we may infer that the ancients were capable
of detecting, not only a slight degree of base' Plin., H. N., xxxiii., 43.  2 De Lapid., c. 80.
3 H. N., xxxiii., 43. Ovid, who fables the metamorphosis
of Battus into this stone, calls it index. See Metam., lib.
ii., v. 706.




160  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
alloy, but even when copper and silver contained a small portion of gold (xa)AcKv KaraXpvaov
Kat aIpyupov). Pliny says they could determine how much of gold, how much of silver or
of copper might be in the mass, to the smallest
difference, with surprising and unfailing art.
The Greeks, especially, appear, not only from
what Theophrastus says, but from  their frequent employment of metaphorical language
derived from its use, and the many allusions to
it by their writers, to have been familiarly acquainted with this mineral.'
But distinct things were comprehended under one name, not only because they agreed in
some striking property, or as to their place of
origin, but in some cases because they were applied to like uses. Thus we find that white
clay or chalk, quick-lime, and the sulphate of
lime were all of them occasionally called gypsum, a name which is now appropriated to the
last. The ternm signifying an earth that has
been subjected to the action of fire,2 was very
See Theog., v. 449; Pind., Pyth., x., 105; Bacchyl.,
Anal. Brunck., i., 149; Soph., (Ed. Tyr., v. 492; Eurip.,
Med., v. 516; Theocr., Id., ii., v. 36; Plat., Gorg., c. 33;
Clem. Alex., Strom., lib. i., p. 291, D.
2 ro, oovu yqoc rL   ovaa, 0 larle,~a ye. —Etym.
Mag., p. 222.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   161
properly applied to the last two substances,
and it may have been extended to clay or chalk
likewise, because that also might be used, as
the others sometimes were, to whiten surfaces.
That such want of discrimination may not be
imputed to gross ignorance, let us bear in mind
that we are ourselves often chargeable with
like inaccuracy; when, for example, we speak
of crayons of black chalk, of red-lead and blacklead pencils; calling thus certain substances
by the name of others to which they bear no
relation, except in so far as they are applied to
like use; and again, when we name differently
chalk, whiting, Paris white, and Vienna white;
all one and the same substance, though prepared for use in different ways, or procured
from different places.
Though the name gypsum was applied, as
has been said, to different things, yet it more
commonly signified the sulphate of lime, which
is still so called. Theophrastus and Pliny
seem to have been well acquainted with the
mode of preparing it, and with certain of its
properties and uses; but as the latter is aware
of some connection between lime and gypsum,'
He observes (xxxvi., 59), "cognata calci res gypsum
est."
L




162   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
so the former sometimes uses the term y~4os
in the more general sense just now assigned to
it of an earth prepared by fire, and evidently
confounds it with quick-lime, when he says
that its heat, upon being moistened, is surprising, and that when used in building they break
it up, and, pouring water upon it, stir it about
with sticks, since its heat is such that they can
not with the hand.' The circumstance, too, he
mentions of a ship laden with cloth and gypsum, which, in consequence of the water having reached the cargo, took fire and was burned,2 is to be explained by supposing what is
called gypsum on this occasion to have been
lime. Epictetus speaks of a house whitewashed with gypsum, meaning, probably, lime; as
do, also, Herodotus and Athenaeus, when speaking of gypsum employed for a similar purpose
of whitening objects.
Theophrastus distinguishes between the
earthy gypsum and that prepared by burning
certain stones; the former being used chiefly
as a substitute for Cimolian earth in cleansing
woolen garments.3 This earthy gypsum, called' Theoph., c. 112.           2 Id., c. 118.
Id., c. 110; Pliny, H. N., xxxv., 57.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  163
Tymphaic from Tymphaia in Etolia,l was
probably such as is still found in certain places
forming " beds of considerable thickness resting on other varieties of gypsum."2 Theophrastus mentions the superior fitness of gypsum for taking impressions;3 and it was, not
long before his time, first employed for taking
moulds from the human face by Lysistratus, a
brother of the famous statuary Lysippus, whom
Alexander distinguished by his favor.4
The use of gypsum as stucco in cornices, approved by Pliny,5 is expressly forbidden by
higher authority in matters of this kind, that of
Vitruvius, who says " hisque (coronis) minime
gypsum debet admisceri."6 Gypsum was used,
moreover, to clarify wine and preserve it from
acidity; to coat vessels so as to close entirely
their joints, and to pack up and preserve grapes
in jars.
The doubts which have been entertained
whether the gypsum of the ancients was the
same with ours, were occasioned, probably, by
the confusion above noticed; but there can be
Plin., H. N., iv., 3.  2 Cleav. Min., p. 208.
3 Theoph., c. 116.    4 Plin., H. N., xxxv., 44.
5 H. N., xxxvi., 59.  6 Vitruv., vii., 3, 3.
7 Geopon., p. 462, 483, 4914




164   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
no difference of opinion as to that gypsum,
which Pliny says was ascertained to be the
best, made of the lapis specularis, or what had
a like foliated structure (squamamve talem habente), which was evidently selenite.' He adds
that gypsum, when moistened, must be used
immediately, for that it very soon hardens and
becomes dry, " celerime coit ac siccatur."
Lapis specularis, in Pliny and other ancient
authors, commonly signifies mica; but as selenite was applied to similar uses, we sometimes,
as in the passage just referred to, find that to
be the substance meant. The mineral called
lapis specularis, from its use in windows, was
furnished originally by Spain only, but in Pliny's
time was found in Cyprus, Sicily, and elsewhere, though none equal to that of Spain and
Cappadocia. That of Cyprus was probably
selenite, of which substance Dr. Clarke saw,
in that island, large masses lying along the
road, as if they had been dropped by caravans,
"as diaphanous as the most limpid specimens
from Montmartre." The Cappadocian specular stone is spoken of by Strabo as forming
large masses, which were exported.2  Pliny de-' Exercit. Plin., p. 184, a C; p. 771, a B, C, D, E.
2 Strabo, p. 540.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 165
scribes it as occurring in Italy embraced in
flint (complexu silicis alligati).l It must have
been found by the ancients of an extraordinary
size, if it even approached the limit assigned by
Pliny, who observes that it had never yet been
obtained above five feet in length.
Although Seneca speaks of the use of this
substance for the purpose of admitting light
in terms from which we might infer that such
use was not yet very ancient in his time,3 it
seems then at least to have been very commonly applied to the same purposes for which window glass is now employed. Columella speaks
of guarding plants against the cold by means
of it, and says that in this way the table of Tiberius was supplied with cucumbers almost
throughout the year.4  Palladius directs the
window of the oil-cellar to be closed with it.5
Pliny speaks of protecting apple-trees with it,6
and Martial alludes to a like liberal use of it in
inclosing both apple-trees and vines.7  Banqueting-rooms,8 baths,9 entire porticos~' were
I H. N., xxxvi., 45.  2 Ibid.    3 Epist. 90.
4 Colum., xi., 3, 52.  5 Pallad., i., 20, 1.
6 I. N., xv., 16.    7 Mart., Ep., viii., 14-68.
8 Sen., Nat. Quaest., iv., 13; De Prov., c. 4.
9 Sen., Ep., 86.    l0 Plin., Epist., i., 17-4, 21.




166  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
secured by means of it against the inclemency
of the weather, while " the pure sun and unadulterated day" could freely enter.
Hibernis objecta Notis specularia puros
Admittunt soles et sine feece diem.
MART., Ep., viii., 14, 2.
The glass (vaXo~), in coffins of which Herodotus (iii., 24) says the Ethiopians called uaycpogioL
inclosed their dead, which was dug among them
in great abundance and easily worked, was, of
course, one or other of these specular stones.
One use of mica or of selenite that especially merits notice is mentioned by Pliny, when,
speaking of the material of which bee-hives
should be formed, he says many had made them
of the specular stone, that they might see the
bees at work within.l The Siberian mica, or
Muscovy glass, is, as the specular stone of Spain
and Cappadocia used to be, an article of commerce, and is sometimes seen in plates between
three and four feet square. In Siberia, in
Peru, and elsewhere, it is used in windows as
a substitute for glass; to which it has even
H. N., xxi., 47. He elsewhere speaks of Aristomachus,
who spent fifty-eight years solely in studying bees; and Philiscus, who, from having passed his life in solitude occupied
in the same study, was surnamed Agrius. (H. N., xi., 9.)




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   167
been preferred in certain cases, as on board
ships of war, where it is not liable to be broken
by the concussion which follows the discharge
of cannon.
The alabaster of the ancients, and one principal use to which it was applied, have been. already spoken of; but it is a substance which
deserves some farther notice. That it was also
denominated. onyx' will appear less strange if
we bear in mind that it was, commonly, stalagmitic carbonate of lime,2 and composed of parallel undulating layers, often differing in color,
so that both it and the silicious gem called onyx
derived that name from a supposed resemblance
to the human nail.3  Pliny observes that the
stone onyx, which some called alabastrites, had
been thought by their ancestors to occur in
Arabia only, but in his time was obtained from
1 It is spoken of by Dioscorides (v., 153) as XiLOos cXa3aarpirrg 6 KcaXov~,uvog Ovvl.
2 The name, however, was extended to stalactitic carbonate of lime, arragonite, and other translucent substances, of
about the same degree of hardness.
3 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 24. The colors of these parallel
layers are often strongly contrasted. In Sicily is found an
alabaster varied with bright red and yellow stripes; another
with yellow and white stripes. At Mount Pellegrino, one
of yellow and deep black. (Jam. Min., ii., 173.)




168   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
the neighborhood of Thebes in Egypt, from Damascus in Syria, and from many other places.
He elsewhere' speaks of a city, Alabastron, in
the Thebais, which probably received its name
from the substance quarried there. This Theban alabaster is said to have been yellowish
white, inclining to rose-red, like a variety now
found at Alicant and Valencia in Spain, and at
Trappani in Sicily.2
Mehemet Ali, previous to the year 1840,
had reopened quarries of Oriental alabaster
that appeared to have been worked at an ancient period, and had made and was then making liberal use of it in the construction of a
splendid mosque and in the floors of his palace
within the citadel of Cairo, for the columns and
other decorations of a palace in his garden at
Shoubra, and the erection of a handsome public fountain at Alexandria. These quarries lie
between the Nile and the Red Sea, about seven
leagues from Benisouef.
One of the earliest uses to which alabaster
was applied was to form drinking-cups; after1 H. N., v., 11.
2 Jam. Min., ii., 173. Respecting the Egyptian alabaster,
see Winck., Stor. d. A. del Dis., vol. ii., p. 11, and Brongn.
Min., i. 217.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  169
ward the feet of couches and of chairs were
made of it; hollow vessels, of very large size;
and columns, of which Cornelius Nepos had
seen some thirty-two feet in length, and Pliny
saw above thirty in the supper-room of Calistus, the freedman of Claudius.' Pliny notes
its being hollowed to form unguent vessels, a
purpose to which it was peculiarly adapted.2
This use of it seems to have been widely diffused and ancient. Herodotus speaks of an alabaster of ointment (vipov  aXagacarov);3 Cicero of" alabaster plenus unguenti;"4 and in the
New Testament we read of "an alabaster box
of very precious ointment."5  The name of the
substance was, in fact, given to vessels made of
other materials when applied to that use, so
that we find in Theocritus "golden alabasters
of Syrian ointment."6 Propertius, too, by murrheus onyx7 means an unguent vessel of porcelain; for we shall hereafter see that murrhina
or murrhea were porcelain; and onyx, a synonym  of alabaster, here indicates merely the
purpose to which the vessel was applied. HorH. N., xxxvi., 12.  2 H. N., xiii;, 2; xxxvi., 12.
3 L. iii., c. 20.  4 2, Acad. apud Nonium, 15, 17.
5 Matt., xxvi., 7; Mark, xiv., 3; Luke, vii., 37.
6 Idyl., xv., 114.         7 Prop., iii., 10, 22.




170  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
ace likewise speaks of " nardi parvus onyx;"'
and Martial more than once uses the word onyx
in the same sense.2  Although the Greeks,
therefore, who seldom looked abroad for the
original of words they used, may, as modern
lexicographers do, have fancied that aX6caaroov was derived from a privative and XagC, a
handle, yet it is probable that they derived the
name, together with the substance, from Arabia, which was for a long time the only source
of it, and in whose language al batstraton signifies the whitish stone.3  The onychytis of
which Strabo speaks as occurring in Cappadocia was probably this same substance called
onyx and alabastrites. The plates of crystal
mentioned by him may have been calcareous
spar, or, if the alabaster was gypseous, laminae
of selenite associated with it.
The Lygdinus lapis, which was found in Paros, and by many thought little inferior to alabaster for preserving unguents,4 was the finest
grained Parian marble. Anacreon, therefore,
1 Od., iv., 12, 17.  2 Epigr., vi., 42, 14-7, 94, 1.
3 Harris's Hist. of the Bible. The form AkXgaaroc, which
sometimes occurs, as in the verse of Crates (Athen., vi., 91),'ErnEr' dXiaCgros EOeiwc iEYv uVpov, may have been adopted from the mistaken derivation of the name.
4 Pliny, H. N., xxxvi., 13.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  171
by Xvyivot rpajjXp'l means a neck like that
Parian marble to which Theocritus compares
fine teeth,2 and Horace the splendid beauty of
Glycera:3
"Urit me Glycersa nitor,
Splendentis, Pario marmore purius."
The Assian stone,4 the Phrygian stone, and
that kind of schistos which Pliny says was
called anthracites,6 were probably aluminous
slate containing more or less pyrites. With
this supposition all that is said of these minerals will be found to agree. The Phrygian
stone became red when burned, and was used
in  - esig cloths.  It and the Assian stone are
mentioned by Dioscorides next before pyrites.7
The principal use of it, according to him, and
from which it derived its name, was by Phrygian dyers; and the Assian stone is characterized by a laminated structure, a saline efflorescence of a sharp taste, and its styptic properties.s The avOos'Aals XiOs mentioned by Lucian9 was probably this saline efflorescence.
1 Od., xviii., 27.   2 Idyl., vi., 30.    3 Od., i., 19, 5.
4 H. N., xxxvi., 27.        5 Ibid., xxxvi., 36.
6 Ibid., xxxvi., 36.        7 Lib. v., c. 141, 142.
s Respecting the Assian stone, see Mill, in Celsum, P.
191; and, respecting the Phrygian stone, p. 190.
9 Lucian, v., 3, p. 654.




172  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
This Assian stone, as it is called by Pliny,
who derives its name from Assos in the Troad,
where it was obtained, is called by Dioscorides
and Celsus1 the Asian stone (X0oc'Aaoio.lapis Asius), the last mentioned author appearing to derive its name from Asia.2  All three
agree in classing it with the stones which, from
the property ascribed to them of consuming
the bodies of the dead inclosed within them,
were called sarcophagi.
The chernites, which Pliny,3 after Theophrastus,4 tells us was very like ivory, and in a coffin of which the body of Darius lay, was probably gypseus alabaster; and the porus, described by those authors as "resembling in color and hardness Parian marble, but particularly light, for which reason the Egyptians employed it for cornices in their best constructed
buildings," was calcareous tufa.5
The stones called 7rvpouazXOt and uyvtiaL by
Aristotle6 and Theophrastus,7 pyrites and molares by Pliny,8 were sometimes common comDioscor., v., 141; Cels., iv., 24.
2 For he says "ex quo in Asia lapidi Asio gratia est"
(ir., 24).   3 H. N., xxxvi., 28.   4 De Lapid., c. 15.
5 See Strabo, p. 629.       6 Vol. i., p. 590,1153.
7 De Lapid., c. 19.         8 H. N., xxxvi., 30.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  173
pact limestone.' The use of 7rvptcyXoC in making iron, mentioned by Aristotle, agrees well
with the idea of its being limestone; and Pliny,2
speaking of various sorts of lime, approves of
that made of mill-stone (utilior e molari quia
est quoedam pinguior natura ejus). It is probable, however, that the stones used in grinding
differed in different countries, as they do at
this day, and that they were often of the silicious kind. Strabo observes that the lava of:.Etna, as it hardened upon cooling, was converted into mill- stone (Xfos o  yvXasC).3   He
speaks of the island Nisyros as furnishing
abundance of mill-stones,4 and of a promontory
called Melaena, on the" coast of Ionia, where
there was a quarry of them.5  It is not likely
the geographer would have pointed out these
two, and no other localities of mill-stone, if the
substance they supplied had been one so far
from scarce as common compact limestone.
The name 7rVPLyaXoc may be understood as implying that the stone so called resisted well the
Jam. Min., ii., 130.     2 H. N., xxxvi., 53.
Page 629.
4These mill-stones of Nisyros seem to have been celebrated. See commentators on Strabo, p. 488, and Eustathius's
Scholia on Dionysius Periegetes, v. 526.    5 Page G45).




174   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
fire; and Saumaise assigns a like meaning to
the term pyrites when applied to mill-stone; it
signifying in this case, he thinks, not a stone
that gave fire on percussion, but which withstood fire in a remarkable degree.' Both Aristotle and Theophrastus observe that these
stones might be melted, and would flow; but
we may infer from what the latter says that
this had been observed where they had been
used in the construction of furnaces for smelting metals; so that the fact of their melting
under such circumstances may well consist with
the belief that they were limestone, and with
the remark which Theophrastus goes on to
make that "there are indeed some who think
all stones may be melted except marble, which,
being thoroughly burned, is converted into
lime" (Kiovia). And this ability of limestone
to resist the action of fire, when by itself exposed to it, having been observed, may suggest
a probable origin of the name 7rvptyaSioc, or
fire-proof, by which it seems to have been
sometimes designated.
Such a mill-stone as was called pyrites for
the reason assigned by Pliny,2 "because there
Exercit. Plinianee, p. 505.  2 H. N., xxxvi., 30.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  175
was much of fire in it," must, one would suppose, have been of a silicious nature; and so,
no doubt, they were in many instances. But
the name pyrites, not. confined to mill-stone,
was applied to various minerals which gave
sparks on percussion; as to the sulphuret of
iron, now so called, with which pyritous copper
was confounded,l and to flint; although this
last was often, as at this day, called silex.2
The geodes and cetites of Pliny3 were such
hollow nodules of argillaceous oxyde of iron as
are still called eagle-stone. The former was
named from its embracing an earthy nucleus;
the latter from its being found, says Pliny, in
the nests of eagles, who were unable otherwise
to hatch their young.4  Pliny distinguishes
four varieties of the vetites, differing in respect
to the color, density, or substance of the kernel
or nucleus contained within them.
The hcematites of the ancients comprehended, besides our red hematite, several other oxydes of iron, as may be seen from Pliny's description of five varieties of it besides the mag"' Pyrites," says Dioscorides, " is a species of stone from
which copper is melted" (v., 143).
2 Virg., Georg., i., 135.  3 H. N., xxxvi., 32, 39.
4 Hence its name etites, from 64r7c, an eagle.




176  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
net I; for magnetic oxyde of iron also was classed with hmematite;2 but that, no doubt, because
of the appearance it exhibited after having
been exposed to a strong heat; for Dioscorides
observes that hematite was likewise artificially
prepared from the magnetic stone, which had
been burned for a sufficient time.3 Theophrastus describes the hamatite as occurring frequently of a dry, squalid appearance, and resembling, according to its name, coagulated
blood.   Another kind, he observes, was called,avO), from its being of a yellowish white.
Dioscorides tells us it was sometimes found in
the red ochre of Sinope.5 Pliny, too, speaks of
one hematites of a blood color (sanguineo colore), and another, by the Greeks called Xanthus, of a whitish yellow (e fulvo candicans).6
He has before said it was found in mines, and,
when burned, resembled cinnabar in color;7 of
1 H. N., xxxvi., 38.          2 Ib., xxxvi., 25.
3 Dioscor., v., 144.
4 It is compared to coagulated blood (ai'la Ire7rtybO) by
the Orphic poem likewise, and the reason is assigned:'Ev yap 3; Xpdo" aVibo& ET/TVoOV atfuaToS Ea'cv'Ev U /ate )earT ijea aaltaaoesr fTpeKVe aq/a
ryvera —-— (v. 654.)
5 Lib. v., c. 144.          6 H. N., xxxvii., 60.? H. N., xxxvi., 37.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  177
one variety, that its streak was blood-red; of
another, that it sometimes resembled saffron.l
From all which it is easily inferred that compact and ochrey red and brown oxydes of iron
were included under haematite.
The androdamas, one of Pliny's varieties of
haematite, which was of a black color, of remarkable weight and hardness, and attracted
silver, copper, and iron, appears, when divested
of its fabulous properties, to have been magnetic oxyde of iron.2
The schistos lapis, by burning which we find,
from Dioscorides3 and Pliny,4 that the heamatite was sometimes counterfeited, was probably
an ochrey stone of a slaty structure, whence its
name.  The best was of a somewhat saffron
color, friable, fissile, resembling in structure
and the cohesion of its layers the fossil salt
called ammoniac.5
Pumex signified not only what we call pumice, but other eroded cellular stones used in
forming artificial grotto-work;6 and the corresponding Greek term, Ktfaanlc, seems to have
been equally indefinite. Theophrastus de1 H. N., xxxvi., 38.  2 See Exercit. Plin., p. 774.
3 Lib. v., c. 145.   4 H. N., xxxvi., 37.
5 Dioscor., v., 145,  6 Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 42.
M




178   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
scribes two varieties widely differing in character, and neither of them what is now called
pumice: one, that of the island INiisyros,l soft
and friable, easily crushed by the hand alone
into a sort of sand; the other, found in the lava
of }Etna, of a dark color, dense and heavy, resembling mill-stone.2 He alludes to the opinion of those who, as he says, thought all pumice (Kicaarnw) the product of combustion, except
that which was formed from the froth of the
sea.  This opinion was founded upon the appearance of the substance, its associations, and
the places where it commonly occurs, in the
neighborhood of volcanoes. For himself, he
seems inclined to think that different varieties
of it may differ in their origin.3  The stone he
calls Lipariean (AutrapacoS), from the island
Lipari, was no doubt obsidian, and he agrees
with those who assign to it an igneous origin.
" It is rendered porous by combustion," he observes, " and becomes like pumice" (KtaalpoEl8X&); thus undergoing change, both as to color
and density; for, previous to such action of fire,
it is black, smooth, and dense. It occurs here
and there imbedded in the pumice, but not conTheoph., c. 36.  2 Id., c. 40.    3 Id., c. 34.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   179
tinuous; just as in Milo pumice is itself, they
say, enveloped in another stone, which, however, is unlike that of Lipari.l Mineralogists are
aware that pumice and obsidian occur in Lipari intimately united and passing into each other, and that in Milo, also, pumice is abundant.2
Pliny speaks of obsidian as having been used
for mirrors placed in walls, and reflecting shadows instead of images;3 and Beckmann remarks on the accuracy of this description of
such mirrors.4 Obsidian was also used for ringstones, and Pliny speaks of images and statues
formed of it; but these are likely to have been
of that factitious kind which he describes-a
glass made in imitation of obsidian. This mineral was found in various countries, as India,
Italy, and Spain; but originally in IEthiopia,
by one Obsidius, according to Pliny, who in
this way derives its name. But as the Greeks
called it a4Lavos XloC, Saumaise5 and Hardouin6 prefer to derive its name, a&row Tre oiEws,
from its translucent nature.
Pliny describes it as of a very dark color,
sometimes translucent; and an inedited Greek
Theoph., c. 25.     2 Cleav. Min., p. 306.
3 H. N., xxxvi., 67.  4 Hist. of Inv., iii., 185.
5 Exercit. Plin., p. 64.    6 Notes on Plin., v. 9, p. 782.




180  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
author, cited by Saumaise,l as not very black,
but inclining to green.
All that is said of the native obsidian of the
ancients agrees so well with what we call obsidian, and so little with any kind of marble,
that it is surprising any should have supposed
it to be Chian marble.
Among the stones which Pliny mentions as
used for physicians' mortars, were the Etesius,
the Thebaicus, the basanites and chrysites, the
Tanarius, Poenicus, and Parius lapides.2  The
lapis Etesius, which he prefers, was a species
of porphyry.3  The Thebaicus, called pyropoeicilus,4 was the red granite quarried near Syene, and thence called Syenites.
The chrysites and basanites were, probably,
one and the same thing; the basanite or Lydian stone being called chrysites from its use in
testing gold.5  The Tanarius, Poenicus, and
Parius lapides, made use of for this purpose,
were no doubt marbles.
1 Exercit. Plin., p. 64.    2 H. N., xxxvi., 43.
3 Exercit. Plin., p. 776, b C.
4 Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 13, 43.
5 Hesych., word XlPvaivL- - Exercit. Plin., p. 776. We
find Pliny, too, using the term coticula in one place to denote a little mortar (xxxvi., 13), and elsewhere for the basanite or touchstone (xxxiii., 43).




ANCIENT MINE.RALOGY.  181
The stone of Siphnus (the present Siphanto),
and that found at Comum (now Como), which,
being hollowed in the turning-lathe, were formed into culinary vessels, was that variety of
talc called pot-stone (lapis ollaris), from the
uses to which it was applied. This Siphnian
stone is very particularly mentioned by Theophrastus as capable of being turned and carved
because of its softness, and as used to make
vessels for the table.' Such vessels are still in
very general use in certain countries; as among
the Grisons,2 in Upper Egypt, in Greenland,
and on Hudson's Bay';3 and at Zoblitz, in Hungary, there occurs a serpentine, which is cut,
turned, and polished into vessels that are distributed all over Germany.4 To this Siphnian
stone of Theophrastus and Pliny is closely related, no doubt, the Magnesian stone (ua'yvircl
XiOoc) of the former author, which has been already mentioned.5 Of that- he says it might
be turned in the lathe, and resembled silver,
though a wholly different substance. It was,
probably, a variety of talc, exhibiting a pearly,.
or what he calls a silvery lustre. And the
De Lapid., c. 74.      2 Cleav. Min., p. 442.
3 Jam. Min., i., 516; Brongn. Min., i., 487.
4 Jam. Min., i., 510.   5 See before, page 156.




182   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
white ophites, before mentioned as a material
of which hollow vessels were formed,l we may
conjecture to have been of a like kind; especially since Pliny calls it soft, and mentions in
the very next line the Siphnian stone.
Among the many varieties of whetstone
which Pliny says there were, he specifies the
Cretan and Lacedaemonian as requiring oil;
the Naxian and Armenian, used with water;
and the Cilician, with which either oil or water
might be used.2  The first mentioned were
probably the novaculite, a mineral first brought
into Western Europe from the Levant, and
still sometimes called Turkey-stone. The others are to be referred to the various substances
still applied to the same use; such as argillite,
graywacke slate, mica slate, and sandstone.
The smyris (cp6pLC XA0oC) of Dioscorides,
"a stone with which the engravers of gems
polish stones,"3 and which Hesychius describes
as " a sort of sand with which the harder stones
are polished," is thought to have been emery.4
All that Theophrastus says upon this subject
is that the stone with which seals are engraved
I See before, page 108.  2 H. N., xxxvi., 47.
3 Dioscorides, v., 166.
4 See Hardouin Notes on Pliny, vol. x., p. 173.




A N C I E N T M I N ERALOGY.  183
is of the same substance with, or resembles
that of whetstones (alcovat), and comes from
Armenia.'
OF MINERAL SUBSTANCES THAT WERE
CLASSED WITH GEMS.
The branch of our subject in which the ancients were, perhaps, least deficient, is that relating to the stones commonly called precious.
These do not in our mineralogy constitute a
separate class, there being great dissimilarity
among them in some important characters; but
their agreement as to others; their superior
weight, lustre, and hardness, together with their
comparative scarceness, have, in common discourse, assigned to them a place apart from
more vulgar minerals.
This consideration, it appears, led Pliny to
treat of them in a separate book-the 37th and
last of his great work-and though he does not
even here confine himself very closely to his
subject, yet has he here made several attempts
at classification. In the first place, he arranges
according to their several colors the more valuable gems; comprehending in this list almost
Ie LTapid., c. 77.




184   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
all the stones that are recognized by us as precious, together with many that are not. We
are then presented with four other lists. The
first, a numerous one, contains, exclusive of varieties specified under several of the heads, no
less than one hundred and thirty-five names alphabetically arranged. The next is of a few
minerals which derive from parts of the body
their distinctive appellations. The third is of
those named after certain animals, and the
last of such as are denominated from other
natural objects.
In the alphabetical list, we find here and
there a mineral sufficiently characterized to determine what it was; but, as to far the greater
part of them, it remains wholly uncertain to
what species in the mineralogical systems of
the present day they would have been referred.
There is, however, reason to believe that, in
these lists of gems, a large proportion of the
crystallized specimens in modern cabinets
would have found their appropriate place and
name. Many such crystallized minerals, which
by their color, form, and lustre could not fail
to attract attention, must undoubtedly have
been known to ancient naturalists; but have
passed without notice, unless they are, as is




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  185
here conjectured, included in these lists. New
species and new varieties must have occurred
anciently, from time to time, as now; and it is
of such, no doubt, our author speaks, when he
says that new and nameless gems were sometimes unexpectedly discovered.
Pliny dates from Pompey's victory over
Mithradates the introduction into the Roman
state of a taste for pearls and Eastern gems, as
also of the vessels called murrhina.l  What
these murrhina were has been a question much
debated, and the controversy does not appear
to be as yet decided; though Sir Wm. Gell
says that "they seem at last to have been successfully traced to China. Propertius calls
them Parthian;2 and it seems certain that the
porcelain of the East was called mirrha di
Smyrna to as late a date as 1555."  This opinion of Sir Wmin. Gell is that of Dr. Clarke also,3
was long ago maintained by Saumaise,4 and
seems more probable than any other. Two
conjectures mentioned by Jameson:5 that of
1 H. N., xxxvii., 6, 7.
2 Propert., iv., 5, 26. And what Propertius says of them
agrees perfectly with the belief that they were porcelain:' Murrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis."
3 Travels, vol. viii., p. 151.   4 Exercit. Plin., p. 144.
5 Min., vol. i., p. 207, 502.




186   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
Baron Veltheim, that they were figure-stone,
and another, that they were concentricallystriped onyxes,l are undeserving our consideration, being wholly inconsistent with the greater part of what is said about murrhina by the
ancients. All that Pliny remarks concerning
them as of his own knowledge, will agree with
the idea that they were formed of a whitish,
opaque, opalescent glass, or of very fine china.2
That they came from the East was certain;
but all that was said farther about their origin
seems to have been mere conjecture. Thus
the Romans.used cceruleum Indicum (indigo),
and atramentum Indicum (Indian ink), without
any knowledge of the nature of these substances;3 and wore silk for centuries before they
learned that it was not combed from the leaves
of trees.4  Pliny elsewhere speaks of murrhinum as one of the many varieties of glass that
were manufactured; as a black and opaque
glass, to resemble obsidian; an opaque red
glass, called haematinon; and white, and mur1 This is the opinion of Leblond, as stated by Millin, Etude
des Pierres Gravees, p. 16. Corsi (Pietr. Ant., p. 166, seq.)
labors through thirty pages to prove them to have been fluor
spar.                        2 H. N., xxxvii., 8.
3 See ante, p. 88, and Plin., H. N., xxxv., 25.
4 Virg., Georg., ii., 121; Plin., H. N., vi., 20.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.   187
rhine, and like the hyacinth, and the sapphire,
and of every other color; though the most esteemed, he says, was that of a pure transparency, and as much as possible resembling crystal.l
As for rock-crystal, it was the universal
opinion of ancient naturalists, and the belief,
indeed, almost to our own time, that it was water congealed to that hardness by long-continued and intense cold. "That it is ice is certain," says Pliny, " and hence the Greeks have
given it its name."2 This ancient notion will
appear less ridiculous if we consider that, although water really converted into a solid crystalline mass by exposure to a very ordinary degree of cold resumes its fluid state when the
heat of which it was deprived is again restored,
yet the results of chemical analysis teach us
that water in a permanently solid state constitutes a considerable proportion of many crystalline substances. Of the hydrate of magnesia, for example, it forms very near one third;
and of the sulphate of soda considerably above
one half. Rock-crystal is one among the very
few minerals whose crystalline form Pliny has
remarked. He observes that " it is not easy to
H. N., xxxvi., 67.
2 lb., xxxvii., 9; Sen., Nat. Quwst., iii., 25.




188 ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
ascertain the reason why crystal is produced in
six-sided prisms (sex angulis lateribus), especially since the terminations are not uniform."
That drinking-vessels were made of it proves
in their lapidaries a high degree of skill; and
the perfection to which the manufacture of
glass had been brought in Pliny's time, may be
inferred from his remark that glass vessels had
approached to a wonderfully near resemblance
of the crystalline; while crystals, notwithstanding, had increased, instead of diminishing in
value.' He mentions one remarkable use of
crystal in applying actual cautery.  " I find,"
says he, " that physicians, if there are parts of
the body to be burned, think that this can not
be more advantageously done than by means
of crystalline balls opposed to the solar rays."2
H. N., xxxvii., 10.
2 Ibid. He elsewhere (xxxvi., 67) speaks of hollow
balls of glass, filled with water, setting fire to clothes; as
does Lactantius also (De Ira Dei, c. 10); and Seneca remarks of such glass balls, that " letters, though small and indistinct, appear, when viewed through them, enlarged and
more distinct" (Nat. Quaest., i., 6). This passage might be
adduced as among those which favor Winckelmann's conjecture that the ancients made use of convex lenses in engraving gems. (See Stor. delle A. del D., vol. ii., p. 20,
and note thereon.) This is the opinion of Natter, also, who
remarks (Anc. Method of Eng. Prec. Stones, Pref., p. viii.),




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  189
This use of a crystalline lens is very ancient,
if the {ZaXo) of Aristophanes was, as the best
commentators take it to have been, rock-crystal. Strepsiades asks Socrates if he had ever
observed, among those who sell medicines, that
beautiful transparent stone with which they
kindle fire. " You mean crystal" (ZaXov), says
Socrates.  "I do," says he.  And, upon Socrates asking how he intends, by means of that,
to get rid of the suit for five talents brought
against him, he says that, taking this stone, he
will, when the clerk is writing down the charge,
stand off toward the sun and so melt out the
letters.'  The use of rock-crystal as a burning
lens is also very particularly mentioned in the
Lithica of Orpheus, a poem of uncertain date,
though Ruhnken and Hermann would assign
it to Domitian's age.2
The poet, having described " the bright limpid crystal, an emanation of divine fiery splendor," bids you, "if without fire you would exI" The art of engraving in gems is too difficult for a young
man to produce a perfect piece, and when he arrives at a
proper age to excel in it his sight begins to fail. It is therefore highly probable that the ancients made use of glasses or
microscopes to supply this defect."
1 Aristoph., Nubes, v., 768, seqq.
2 Orphica, ex edit. Hermanni, p. 676.




190   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
cite a flame," to hold it above a dry torch, opposite to the beaming sun.  " Immediately it
will direct upon the torch a slender ray, which,
touching the dry rich fuel, will produce smoke,
then a little fire, and finally a bright flame;
while the crystal itself, though the cause of fire,
remains cold to the touch."' The poet alludes
to the same property afterward,' saying of the
lychnis that it could, like the crystal, without
fire kindle flame.
Under the head of crystal may be introduced
the mention of a stone called in the Orphic
poem chrysothrix, or golden hair, of which
there were two varieties: the one like crystal,
the other resembling chrysolite; that is, our
topaz; and both containing bright rays resemnbling hairs. These stones were probably quartz
containing, as it sometimes does, capillary filaments of native gold,3 or acicular crystals of
some other mineral. This golden hair might
be compared, or is perhaps the same, with the
Venus hair-stone, which is quartz traversed by
such acicular crystals of the red oxyde of titanium.4  The enhydros of Pliny5 was a crystal
Lith., v., 170, seqq.   2 Ib., v., 271.
3 Cleav. Min., p. 241.   4 Cleav. Min., p. 236.
5 H. N., xxxvii., 73.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 191
of quartz inclosing a drop of water. Claudian
has made such a crystal the subject of no less
than seven Latin and two Greek epigrams.
It is probable that Pliny, when speaking of
the gem called adamas,l had in view, among
other things, the diamond; but it is plain from
the fables he relates of it, that this substance,
"C of highest value, not only among gems, but
all human things, and for a long time known to
kings only, and to very few of them," was unknown to him.
He has evidently confounded in his description several widely different minerals, to which,
from their hardness, or their, in some respect or
other, indomitable nature, the Greeks gave the
name ariadas, adamant.  Thus steel was very
frequently so called;2 and those grains of native gold, which, when the gangue containing
them was reduced to powder in a mortar, resisted the pestle and could not be comminuted
by it, were called adamas.3  Something of this
sort Pollux meant by that flower of gold, or
choicest gold (Xpevuoiv avos), which he calls
H1. N., xxxvii., 15.
2 AMciaga. y/vo, catpov, Hesych., and see Stanley's Comment. on ~Esch., Prom. Vinct., v. 6.
3 Plin., Exercit., p. 757.




192   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
adamas;l and Plato, too, by the "branch or
knot of gold (XpvaoV o5oc), which, from its density, very hard, and deep-colored, was called
adamas."2  It was, no doubt, this native gold
that was spoken of in the authors from whom
Pliny drew when he wrote that adamas is found
in gold mines; that it accompanies gold; that
it seems to occur nowhere but in gold; that it
is not larger than a cucumber-seed, nor unlike
to it in color.
Of the six kinds he mentions, that described
as occurring in India, not in gold, but bearing
some resemblance to crystal, may have been
the diamond; though even here it is probable
that he, and those from whom he copies, mistook fine crystals of quartz for diamond, or,
rather, call such crystals adamas. The description given is precisely that of a crystal of
quartz in which the prism has entirely disappeared, leaving a double six-sided pyramid
upon a common base.3
The manner in which Dionysius Periegetes
characterizes adamas may lead us to suspect
that he also spoke of crystals of quartz; for
the diamond in its unpolished state, as known
Onom., 1. 7, ~ 99.    2 Tim., v. 7, p. 57, edit. Tauch.
3 Plin., xxxvii., 15.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  193
to the ancients, would hardly have been styled
all-resplendent (wrallav4owvTa),1 and afterward
brilliant (yapl/aipovra).2  The locality in the
former case, too, being Scythia.
The variety of adamas which Pliny calls siderites was magnetic iron ore;3 and the Cyprian was probably emery, or some similar substance used in engraving gems.4
There is a strange jumble of truth and fable
in what Pliny says of the hardness of adamas,
which was so unspeakable that it could not be
crushed, but would split hammers and anvils
used in the attempt. This invincible substance, however, which resisted the violence of
fire, and the force of iron hammers, might be
so far softened by steeping it in fresh warm
goats' blood, as to render it possible with repeated blows to break it; though to accomplish
even this the best of hammers and anvils were
required. And being thus broken, it was reduced to the smallest and scarce visible particles, which, sought after by engravers, and in-' Dion. Perieg., v. 318.        2 Id., v. 1119.
3 Exercit. Plin., p. 773, 774; Jam. Min., i., 41.
4 According to Saumaise, who would read " qui e Cypro
venit" for "quod et Cyprio evenit," in Plin., xxxvii., 15.See Exercit. Plin., p. 774, a F. Corsi (p. 271) supposes this
Cyprian adamas to have been the Oriental sapphire.
N




194  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
closed in iron, would readily cut into the hardest substances. The localities of the several
varieties of adamas were 2Ethiopia, India, Arabia, Macedonia, Cyprus, and Germania.
Beckmann thinks the iaspis of Orpheusl
may have been diamond; for the poet, he remarks, " compares his iaspis to rock-crystal,
and says that it kindles fire in the same manner."2  But the learned  antiquary  was led
astray by a false reading; for the poet compares not the iaspis, but the lychnis, to rockcrystal, and by a poetical exaggeration ascribes
to it the same power of kindling fire.3  Beckmann farther conjectures that "the iapsis in
the Revelation of St. John, described as a costly, transparent, crystalline stone, was perhaps
our diamond, which was afterward every where
distinguished by that name."4
No mineralogist, who reads what Pliny says
1 Lith., v., 264.   2 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 238.
3 The true reading unquestionably is AVXvl, aV 8' instead
of AviiXy,2l'. (See Hermann's edition'of the Orphica.)
This stone (XvXvcS) Dionysius Periegetes (v., 329) describes
as altogether resembling flame (orvpob ohoyt rri-7rav 0poio),
and it was from this fiery splendor of the stone itself, perhaps, that the Orphic poet was led to ascribe to it such virtue. See, also, Lucian, iii., 478.
4 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iv., 239.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   195
of the smaragdus, can fail to perceive that he
classes together under that name several wholly different minerals, but what they were it is
not easy to determine. Having assigned the
superiority among gems to the adamas, he
places next in value pearls, which also he regards as gems, and the third rank he assigns to
the smaragdus. Of this he enumerates twelve
kinds: first the Scythian, second the Bactrian,
and third the Egyptian; and with one or other
of these three our emerald, if found among the
smaragdi, would probably be classed. The other kinds, he says, were found in copper mines;
the best in those of Cyprus; and the characters which he ascribes to certain of them agree
so well with those of malachite, that we can
hardly doubt that this mineral was classed with
his smaragdus. For of those smaragdi which
were obtained in copper mines, some were not
translucent; were of various shades of green;
resembled the eyes of cats or panthers (that is,
were, as modern mineralogists express themselves, chatoyant).l Though Pliny does not
here contradict Theophrastus in any point, yet
it is evident that he is compiling from some' Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 18.




196  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
other source. The latter author states' that
"of known and accessible places there are two
where chiefly the smaragdus occurs: the copper mines of Cyprus, and the island over
against Carthage,2 where they are found more
separate and distinct; since in Cyprus it is
mined for as other mineral substances are, and
in many veins where they seek for it alone.
But it is rarely found of sufficient size for a
seal, or ring-stone; they use it, therefore, to
cement on gold; for it unites with the metal
as chrysocolla' does;3 and some, indeed, think
them  of the same nature, since they are much
alike in color; but chrysocolla is abundant in
De Lapid., c. 49.
2 Saumaise would read Chalcedon here instead of Carchedon (Carthage).
3 This, though not the usual translation, is, perhaps, the
best sense we can put upon a passage far from being clear.
It is so understood by Kidd (Min., i., 20); and Saumaise
(Exercit. Plin., p. 128, b F) seems to interpret it in the same
sense with a passage which afterward occurs (c. 63), where
Theophrastus speaks of the Bactrian smaragdi as being
small, and used ELC rCa XttOoicokXXlra, that is, vessels of gold
or silver, to the plain surface of which precious stones were
firmly attached, by a plain surface, with cement, as is still
practiced in Armenia, and perhaps elsewhere. This Carchedonian, or Chalcedonian emerald, Corsi (p. 257) takes to
have been green feldspar, the Amazon-stone.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   197
gold, and yet more in copper mines, while smaragdus, as has already been observed, is rare."
He adds that "it appears to be formed from
jasper (iaspis); for that it was said there had
been found in Cyprus a stone, of which the
one half was smaragdus, and the other half iaspis, which the water had not changed." He
concludes by remarking that " some labor must
be bestowed upon the smaragdus to give it
polish, for in its natural state it has no lustre."
This mineral found in the mines of Cyprus,
half emerald and half jasper, which is mentioned by Pliny also,' may have been arseniate of
copper, accompanied, as it sometimes is, by red
oxyde of the same metal.2 The Median emeralds " were very green, and partook sometimes
of the sapphire;" that is, perhaps, had the blue
carbonate mingled with the green. Some were
fragile; of a changeable color, resembling the
green feathers of the peacock's tail, or the pigeon's neck;3 or, in modern terms, exhibited a
pavonine or columbine tarnish, such as pyritous copper often does. These same emeralds
were scaly, and contained veins. The chalco1 H. N., xxxvii., 19.  2 Cleav. Minl., p. 565.
3' In caudis pavonum columbarumque collo plumis similes."-PLIN., H. N., xxxvii., 18.




198  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
smaragdus, classed with the smaragdus,l and
described as confusedly veined with brass, was,
no doubt, malachite, with pyritous copper.
There are several other minerals which one
familiar with their characters may see indicated by some part or other in Pliny's description
of smaragdus: as chrysoberyl,2 chrysoprase,
prase,3 plasma,4 diallage,5 fluor-spar,6 green jasper, green obsidian,7 dioptase,8 euchroite, and
euclase. The three last-named minerals have
Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 19.
2 Our chrysoberyl is not the mineral designated in Pliny
by that name, as will appear hereafter under the head of
beryl.
3 A well-chosen specimen of prase, when cut, affords a
tolerable imitation of the emerald. (Min. des Gens du
Monde, p. 151.)
4 Plasma is the prime d'e'meraude of some authors. It
was considered by the Romans as a gem, was cut into ornaments, and frequently engraved. (Jam. Min., i., 214.)
5 Diallage is still called by many mineralogists smaragdite, and sometimes emeraudite.
6 Beckmann thinks the mirror of smaragdus in which
Nero viewed the gladiatorial combats (Plin., xxxvii., 16)
may have been green obsidian, green jasper, or even green
glass. (Hist. of Inv., iii., 177.)
7 Green fluor-spar is called by Haiiy 6meraude de Carthagdne. (Tr. de Min., ii., 185.)
8 Dioptase HaUy calls emeraude, and 6meraudine. (Tr.
de Min., iii., 96.)




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   199
a fine emerald color, are more or less transparent, and, in other respects, bear sufficient resemblance to the emerald to justify us in supposing that, if known to the ancients, they were
comprehended under the same name. Dioptase is now found chiefly in Siberia, and, if
brought anciently from the same quarter, will
have been classed with the Scythian emerald,
which ranked first in value. But this and other
minerals occurred anciently, no doubt, in other
localities than those in which they are at present found. We every now and then hear of
localities that have become exhausted, and
sometimes within a few years, perhaps, from
the time when they were first discovered and
explored. The same thing must have happened occasionally in former times; so that in
some cases we may be taking fruitless pains to
determine minerals that never have been seen
by moderns, the localities whence only they
were obtained having many ages since become
exhausted or unknown.
As for the statues, obelisks, and pillars formed of emeralds of prodigious size, mentioned
by Theophrastus, Pliny, and others, they were
of some one or other of the several more abundant minerals that have been above suggested,




200   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
or else of colored glass. Larcher thinks the
pillar of emerald which Herodotus saw in the
Temple of Hercules at Tyre, and which shone
at night,' was a hollow cylinder of glass within
which lamps were placed.
Theophrastus himself, speaking of this column, suggests that it may be a false. emerald;
" for such," says he, "there are."2  And such
are there, even at the present day, which pass
for native stones.:Beckmann says that a piece
of glass in the monastery of Reichenau, seven
inches long, and weighing twenty-eight pounds,
and a large cup at Genoa, which is, however,
full of flaws, are given out to be emeralds, even
to the present time.3
Some have supposed that our emerald ought
not to be reckoned among the many varieties
of smaragdi mentioned by the ancients. Dutens doubts if it was known to them; and from
the researches, and the positive assertion of Tavernier, it appears, at least, that no locality of
emerald is known in Asia or its islands.4  But
" that emeralds were known in Europe before
the discovery of America is proved by the emI Herod., ii., 44.       2 De Lapid., c. 45.
3 Hist. of Inv., iii., 189.
4 Brongn., Tr. Elem. de Min., p. 418.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 201
erald that was in the mitre of Pope Julius the
Second, and by the necklace of antique emeralds found in Pompeii, and seen by Mr. Hawkins."' The Egyptian emeralds, mentioned by
Pliny were, in all probability, derived from the
emerald mines of Gebel Zabdra, in Upper
Egypt, which Bruce speaks of, and which were
reopened in 1818 by Mehemet Ali, but without success.
With respect to the beryl (beryllus), Pliny
observes that " many regard it as of the same;,
or certainly of a like nature with the emerald."2
He seems to think its crystalline form due to
the lapidary's art; but adds, that some suppose
them to be naturally of that shape.3
The best were those of a pure sea-green (qui
viriditatem  purl maris imitantur), our aquamarina, beril aigue-marine.4  The next in esteem were called chrysoberyl, and are somewhat vaguely described as "paulo pallidiores,
sed in aureum colorem exeunte fulgore." This
Clarke's Travels, vol. viii., p. 150, note.
2 H.N. xxxvii., 20.
3  Poliuntur omnes sexangula figura artificum ingeniis
-quidam et angulosos putant statim nasci."
4 Dionysius Periegetes calls it /ypS /3srlpvMov yXavqrY
WiOov, that is, according to Eustathius, sea-green; and afterward merely /PpAXXov yXavKcv Xtiov.-v. 1012, 1119.




202   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
was probably the yellow emerald, such as occurs in Auvergne, or at Ackworth in New
Hampshire. The third was called chrysoprase;
and would seem to have been, in fact, as Pliny
says some considered it, a mineral proprii generis, different from the beryl. It resembled in
color the juice of the leek, but with somewhat
of a golden tinge, and hence its name.l Although we are uncertain as to the mineral here
described, yet it is not improbable that it was
the same now called chrysoprase, and to which
Lehman was the first in modern times who
gave the ancient name.2 The fourth variety
of beryl was of a color approaching the hyacinth; the fifth of a wax, and the sixth of an
olive color. The last variety spoken of by
Pliny resembled crystal, but contained hairy
threads and impurities (crystallo fere similescapillamenta habent sordesque). These were
probably such crystals of quartz as are often
found, rendered partly opaque by chlorite, or
penetrated by capillary crystals of epidote, actinolite, or other minerals. Pliny observes
that the Indians stained rock-crystal in such a
way as to counterfeit other gems, and especially the beryl.3
1 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 33, 34.   2 Jam. Min., i., 202.
3 H. N., xxxvii., 20.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  203
The opal (opalus) of Pliny is too well characterized, and its peculiar lustre, or opalescence,
too accurately described by him, to leave any
doubt that it was what we call precious opal.
He first speaks of it in the order in which the
great value ascribed to it entitled it to rank:
in the first class of gems.l Afterward, when
speaking of gems according to their respective
colors, he introduces it again, as taking the
lead among white gems (dux candidarum), under the name of paederos; by which name he
had before said it was, because of its extraordinary beauty, more generally distinguished.
Pliny is not the only one among the ancients, as Jameson supposed, who makes mention of this gem. The Orphic poem commends
the beauty of the 67raXXLoc, and evidently alludes to its other name, paderos (rat&pwsc), in
saying that it has the delicate complexion of a
lovely youth (EPrTOv 7repeva Xpoa wratoS).2
This gem, also, Pliny says, the Indians so well
imitated in glass that the counterfeit could
hardly be detected. The opal was, perhaps,
too highly valued to be frequently engraved.
There are very few engraved specimens of this
I H. N., xxxvii., 21.  2 Orph., Lith., v. 280.




204   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
mineral preserved in collections;l but that it
sometimes was used'as E ring-stone, we learn
from the story Pliny tells of a senator named
Nonius, who, possessing an opal valued at twenty thousand sesterces, which Antony coveted,
was proscribed in consequence, and fled, saving
of his whole fortune this ring alone (e fortunis
suis omnibus anulum abstulit secum).
The sardonyx (sardonyches), mentioned by
Pliny next after opal, as holding the next rank,
was evidently the same stone with that now so
called; but under the same denomination seem
to have been comprehended other varieties of
chalcedony, and especially the carnelian which
Werner calls sardonyx, whose colors are in alternate bands of red and white, and, when the
stone is cut in certain directions, resemble the
flesh seen through the finger nail.2  The first
Roman who sealed with a sardonyx was the
elder Scipio Africanus, from whose time this
sort of gem was much used for that purpose,
it being almost the only one which left a fair
impression and brought away with it no portion of the wax. This gem was most approved
I Jam. Min., i., 233.
2 "Velut carnibus ungue hominis imposito."-PLINY,
xxxvii., 23.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  205
when it exhibited distinct colors and bands well
defined. The localities mentioned by Pliny
are India, Arabia, and Armenia.
The gem onyx seems to have comprehended
several varieties of agate; as the onyx-agate,
and the eyed-agate.' The name, derived from
a certain resemblance to the human nail, was
applied originally to the calcareous alabaster
before mentioned; the substance meant whenever unguent vessels are spoken of as made of
onyx.2 From that it was afterward derived to
the gem, or ring-stone onyx.3
The sard (sarda) of Pliny is what we call carnelian.' By remarking that it was first found
at Sardes, he means, probably, to suggest the
origin of its name; which others prefer to derive from Sardinia, where Kircher says that
very good ones are obtained.4 Epiphanius says
it received its name from some resemblance
which it bore to the fish called sardine (aapet~
iXOVt rEraptXEvyIvq2)).5
"Cingentibus candidis venis oculi modo."-PLIN., H.
N., xxxvii., 24.               2 See before, p. 167.
3 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 24. Used in this latter sense the
word is of the feminine gender, as in the former it is masculine; the word gemma being understood in the one case, and
lapis in the other. (Plin., ubi supra et Exercit. Plin., p.
393, 396.)         4 Mund. Subterr., lib. viii., p. 81.
5 Epiph., de 12 Gemmis, p. 22,




206  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
The best sards had been obtained from near
Babylon, in working certain stone quarries,
where it was found enveloped in the rock; but
that locality, Pliny says, had failed. It was,
however, a common gem, and occurred in many
other places. There was no one, Pliny says,
more frequently employed among the ancients;
and by referring to the plays of Menander and
Philemon, to confirm his assertion, he gives us
to understand whom he means to designate as
ancients. He speaks of one of the three kinds
brought from India as being underlaid with
silver foil when set; and of another kind from
Egypt, under which gold foil was laid. The
favor this gem enjoyed as a ring-stone was in
consequence of its making, like the sardonyx,
a clean impression, and bringing away no portion of the wax.
Under the head of glowing gems (ardentes
gemmae) Pliny classes a considerable number,
and assigns the first rank among them to carbunculi. The carbunculus of Pliny is said by
some to have been the ruby, while others regard it as the garnet; and both opinions, probably, are right. The Latin name seems, like
our term ruby, to have been applied to very
different minerals, and may have comprehend



ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 207
ed the red sapphire, or Oriental ruby; the spinelle ruby; the red topaz, or Brazilian ruby;
the Bohemian ruby (a variety of red quartz);
red fluate of lime, called the false ruby; together with several varieties of garnet.
Those carbuncles which Pliny calls Alabandic, because they were cut and polished at Alabanda,l were precious garnets, still called by
some mineralogists Alabandines, or Alamandines. What he afterward says of Alabandic
carbuncles, which were darker colored and
rougher than others, may be explained by supposing that near Alabanda both precious and
common garnets were obtained.
Those Indian carbuncles which he describes
as" non claros, ac plerumque sordidos, ac semper fulgoris horridi," and which had been hollowed into vessels that would hold a pint (sextarii unius mensuram), were common garnets;
which are sometimes found of considerable size,
as large even as a child's head.2 It is evident
that there are still other minerals besides these
among the carbunculi; but what those minerals may be it is not easy to determine.
1 " Alabandicos in Orthosia caute nascentes, sed qui perficiantur Alabandis."-H. N., xxxvii., 25.
2 Cleav. Min., p. 367.




208   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
Pliny observes that these gems were so easily imitated in glass, something being placed
underneath to improve its lustre, that to distinguish the false stones from the true was very
difficult; though, like other factitious gems,
they might be detected by the lapidary's wheel,
their greater softness and fragility, and their
inferior weight.
Theophrastus uses the name Oawfpap (carbunculus) in a somewhat more restricted sense.
Having spoken of combustible minerals, he
goes on to point out some that are wholly incombustible; and first the carbuncle (a/vpeae),
which, he observes, is engraved for seals, and
describes as of a red color, and when exposed
to the rays of the sun resembling a burning
coal. It may be called very precious, he remarks, since a very small one sells for forty
pieces of gold. This kind was brought from
Carthage and Marseilles. Another kind, alike
incombustible, occurred near Miletus, angular,
and sometimes hexagonal, which also was called
carbuncle (a'vOpa4).1 The &vOpaeov, which he
afterward describes,2 probably comprehended
some varieties of common garnet, and perhaps
schorl.' Theoph., c. 31, 32.          2 Id., c. 61.




ANCIENT  MI NERAL OGY,   209
The anthracites, described by Pliny among
these glowing gems,' may be micaceous oxyde,
or scaly red oxyde of iron. The latter is sometimes seen in cavities of the red htematite,2 between which and anthracites there seems to
have existed some connection.3 By its being
"CC carbonibus similes," Pliny must mean that it
possessed a fiery lustre, a glow resembling that
of coals, and which he presently describes as
" igneus color." That, when thrown into the
fire, these anthracites "velut intermortuce extinguuntur, contra, aquis perfusve exardescunt,"
means, probably, that their lustre is destroyed
by casting them into the fire, but improved by
sprinkling them with water; which is true.
The sandaresus and sandaster4 were perhaps
varieties of aventurine quartz, which occurs of
all the colors ascribed by Pliny to these stones:
red, as they probably were, being classed with
carbunculi; yellowish brown, or resembling
smoky topaz (fumido chrysolitho similes);5 yellow, or " mali coloris;" and greenish, or with
H. N., xxxvii., 27.      2 Cleav. Min., p. 601.
3 See Plin., xxxvi., 38, and Dalecamp's notes thereon.
Agricola makes the anthracites a species of hematite.
4 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 28.
5 The chrysolithus of Pliny was our topaz, as will appear
hereafter under the proper head.
0




210   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
the color " olei viridis." The transfulgent
drops of gold, seen never on the surface, but
always in the body of the mineral, were what
mineralogists now describe as " brilliant points
or spangles, which shine with a silver or golden lustre, and seem to be produced by the reflection of light from  numerous fissures; or
from disseminated plates of mica; or, perhaps,
from laminae of quartz interspersed through
the mass."
The lychnis, so called from some resemblance
to the flame of a lamp,' or from its peculiar lustre when viewed by lamplight, was of several
kinds, distinguished by their colors; as palered, violet-red, crimson-red. In which respect,
and as to the localities whence it was obtained, it agrees well with the rubellite. But the
chief point of resemblance to this mineral is its
possession of electric properties, observed by
Pliny, who says that, when heated in the sun
or by friction, it attracts chaff and leaves of paper (chartarum  folia).2  Nor, if there should
be, otherwise, sufficient ground for believing
lychnis to be rubellite, need we be staggered
I Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 29.
2 This property led Beckmann to suppose it might be tourmaline. (Hist. of Inv., i., 144.)




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.  211
by what our author, in the following chapter,
says-that drinking-vessels had been made of
lychnis, and of the mineral he is there speaking of, carchedonius; for in the very next sentence he remarks that "all these gems obstinately resist the graver's tool;" which seems
wholly inconsistent with their being hollowed
into drinking-vessels. They may, perhaps, have
been used, as other gems were, in ornamenting
such vessels, which were thence called 1aiXtOa,
or XLOoK6XXnra.
The carchedonius, which occurred in the
mountains of the Nasamonse, and was taken
thence to Carthage, from which city it derived
its name, is supposed by some commentators on
Pliny' to have been what we call chalcedony,
but the characters assigned to it by Pliny do
not warrant such opinion. Like the Carthaginian carbuncles (carbunculi Carchedonii) spoken
of before, it had its name from Carthage (KapXnaw'v), but it seems to have been a different
mineral;2 and, from its possessing electricity,
though in slighter degree than the lychnis,
from its brittleness, and its resemblance to expiring coals (in blackness, probably), we might
l Hardouin, in Plin., vol. x., p. 88; Salm., Plin. Exercit.,
p. 270, a F.        2 Plin. Exercit., p. 270, a D.




212   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
not unwarrantably infer that it was schorl.
There is, indeed, one argument against this
supposition, and in favor rather of its being the
above-mentioned variety of carbunculus, which
is, that Pliny classes it with the gems he styles
ardentes; and which, after having spoken of
sardonyx, he considers, by way of digression,
before treating of the sarda, because they all
agreed in certain particulars as to which they
differed from the sard. They were all of them
engraved with much difficulty, and, when used
as signets, retained and brought away with
them a portion of the wax.
The topaz (topazius), which Pliny speaks of
as a gem of a peculiar green color (suo virens
genere), which even in his time retained a high
value, but was upon its first discovery preferred
before all others, is supposed by some to have
been the same with our chrysolite;2 as his
chrysolite is considered by Werner and others
to have been the stone which we call topaz.
This name is derived from that of the island
Topazos, in the Red Sea, whence this mineral was originally brought.  Juba3 derives the
name of the island itself from rorar6[o, to conjecH. N., xxxvii., 24.' Jam. Min., i., 48.
3 Cited by Plin., xxxvii., 32.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 213
ture; it being often hid in mist, and mariners,
consequently, at a loss to find it.' Pliny styles
his topaz largest of gems (amplissima gemmarum), and speaks of a statue of Arsinoe, wife
of Ptolemy Philadelphus, made of it, four cubits high; which seems wholly inconsistent
with its being chrysolite; although a variety
of this mineral, called olivine, has been found
in masses of considerable size.
The extraordinary dimensions ascribed to
Pliny's topaz have led some to think it was a
variety of jasper or of agate. Pliny says that
it alone, of the nobler gems, could be touched
by the file; and that recent authors distinguished two kinds of it: one having the color
of the leek, and therefore called prasoides; the
other, more inclined to a golden color, styled
chrysopteros, and resembling chrysoprase.
Pliny's whole description of the topaz is, perhaps, as applicable to the minerals which we
call prase and chrysoprase as to any that we
know.
Bruce mentions an island in the Red Sea
called Jibbel Seberget, or the Mountain of
Emeralds; but says the substance he there met
1 For a strange account of this island and the topaz it
produced, see Diod. Sic., lib. iii., c. 38.




214  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
with was little harder than glass; he conjectures that this green, pellucid, crystalline mineral, as he describes it, was classed with the
smaragdi of the ancients.' Kidd asks, May not
this have been chrysolite, and this island the
Topaz island of Pliny?2 But later researches
have shown that the substance in question is
green-colored fluor-spar.3 Pliny, after observing that this topaz " solus nobilium limam sentit," adds that the rest are polished naxc iis cotibus; and he elsewhere states that naxium has
long been preferred to any other substance for
polishing marble statues, for engraving and polishing gems.4  By naxiae cotes and naxium he,
no doubt, means the emery of the island Naxos,
The color and other characters, as far as they
are given, of callais, agree tolerably well with
the belief that it was what we call turquoise, a
stone of which there exist in cabinets many
ancient engraved specimens.5 Pliny says the
callaYs was of a pale green (e viridi pallens);
that its best color was that of emerald; that it
occurred in roundish masses (oculi figura extuberans), and in regions of Asia which are the
Bruce's Travels, vol. i., c. 9.    2 Min., i., 121.
3 Russel's Egypt, p. 431.   4 H. N., xxxvi., 7.
Millin, ]tude des Pierres Gravees. p. 18.




ANCIENT  MINERALOQGY.   215
same with those whence the turquoise is now
brought.l  The story Pliny tells of its being
obtained, by means of slings, from lofty and inaccessible rocks,.to which it feebly adhered,
projecting above their surface, we may be permitted to regard as a fable, not to be taken into
consideration.
Of this gem, also, he observes that there was
no one more perfectly imitated in glass.
Prasius, a green stone, of inferior rank,2 was
probably our prase; and that second kind of it,
which was horrid with spots of blood; and the
third kind, distinguished by three light-colored
stripes, were two varieties of heliotrope. Some,
says Pliny, prefer to these the chrysoprase,
which also resembles in color the juice of the
leek, but from that of topaz inclines to that of
gold. To this chrysoprase, which he has before
spoken of as a variety of beryl, he ascribes such
dimensions that cups (cymbia) were sometimes
formed of it. It is probable, as has already
been observed,3 that this was the same mineral
as the stone of Kosemiitz, which Lehman first
called chrysoprase.
The prasites of Theophrastus,4 of which he
1 H. N., xxxvii., 33.  2 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 34.
3 Page 202.         4 De Lapid., c. 65.




216   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
merely observes that it was somewhat like verdigris in color (Ith8n rT- X9pq), was either the
prasius or the chrysoprase of Pliny.
The Nilion, so called from the River Nile,
on the banks of which it occurred in IEthiopia, without lustre, dull; of the color of smoky
topaz, and sometimes of honey, was, perhaps,
jasper.
The molochites, malachite, so called from
yuoXoXn or pIaX6aXi, mallows, which it resembled
in color, is described as opaque, of a deeper and
duller green than the smaragdus. We may,
nevertheless, regard it as the mineral still called malachite, and which, as we have seen, Pliny
classes with smaragdi.' He may here again
introduce it, under a different name, among the
green minerals he is now describing, because
he finds it mentioned in the authors now before
him; for he often looks no farther than the
source from which at the time he happens to
be compiling.
"Iaspis," says Pliny, " is green, and often is
translucent." What we call jasper is of almost
every color, and is opaque. But still, the ancient iaspis may have comprehended certain
I See before, page 19;5.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   217
varieties of green jasper; and since agate and
jasper are closely connected, and pass into each
other, it is probable there were varieties of
agate, also, classed under the same head. The
Orphic poem, speaking of the various colors of
the agate, says, " You recognize therein the
glassy jasper, the blood-red sard, and the brilliant emerald."' The iaspis found in Persia,
and described as resembling in color an autumnal morning sky, and hence called aerizusa, is
thought by some to have been our turquoise;
but Beckmann is decidedly opposed to this
opinion, and supposes it to have been blue jasper.2 Jameson may say with truth, " We are
ignorant of the particular stone denominated
jasper by the ancients;" for certainly there is
no one stone to which the description of jasper
could be applied; but in this case, as in others,
it is evident that several different minerals were
comprehended under a single name. One variety specified by Pliny, " stellata rutilis punctis," resembled a jasper, not uncommon at this
day, of a dark green color, with red spots, and
like heliotrope, except that it is not translu] Lith., v. 607.
2 See Salm., Exercit. Plin., p. 143, a C; Beck., Hist. of
Inv., ii., 322.




218   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
cent. All the East, Pliny says, wore as amulets that variety of jasper which resembled emerald, and had a white stripe running through
the midst of it, and was therefore styled grammatias; as that which had several such stripes
was called polygrammos. Here, again, he describes what we may easily recognize as striped
or ribbon jasper, a mineral which abounds in
many countries.
Pliny classes with jasper certain stones which
he calls signets (sphragides), because they sealed so well. The better sort, he says, were set
open (a jour), in such way that the gold merely embraced the margin of the stone.'  He
mentions, as though it were an unusual magnitude for this mineral, that he had seen an image of Nero in jasper, fifteen inches high. We
find that this stone, also, as many others already
spoken of, was imitated in glass; but the counterfeit was easily detected from the difference
in lustre.
Dioscorides briefly characterizes several varieties of jasper:2 one resembling the emerald;
one somewhat crystalline, resembling phlegm;
I "Funda clauduntur patentes, nec prxterquam margines
auro amplectente."-II. N., xxxvii., 37.
2 Lib. v., c. 160.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 219
one that has bright veins of white running
through it; one sky-blue; one smoky; one resembling turpentine, but in what respect he
does not mention; and one like the callais,
which we have seen was of a light green color.'
All of them, he says, were worn as amulets;
and its virtue as such is mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes also, who alludes to it in three
different places,2 calling it sky-blue (6,eporaaav), sea-green (for so V8a7Troir'av is here to
be interpreted), and green translucent (XXwp&a
&tavyaTiovcrav). The Orphic poem also styles
it green (Eapoxpoov).  The only epithets that
Pliny adds to those already noticed are purple
and purple passing into coerulean. Among the
localities of the mineral he mentions Chalcedon
as furnishing an opaque variety.
It will be found that chalcedony and jasper,
which are often associated with each other, and
which are both of them, but especially the former, sometimes found united with limpid and
amethystine quartz,3 will answer tolerably well
to all these descriptions of iaspis. And to this
same head of iaspis it is highly probable that
nephrite, and other varieties of jade, were anciently referred.
1 See before, page 214.  2 Verses 724, 782, 1120.
3 Cleav. Min, p. 248.




220    A N C I E N T  MINERALOGY.
WTe find that Pliny again introduces here as
a gem, in the order in which we are now following him, the cyanus, which, under the name
of cceruleum, he had before treated of as a pigment. This may be accounted for from the occasional occurrence of fine crystallized specimens of the blue carbonate of copper; which
would naturally, according to his mode of
speaking, be reckoned among gems. But it is
evident that he here applies to his gem cyanus
what Theophrastus says' of the Egyptian factitious cyanus before mentioned.2 The golden
dust which this gem cyanus sometimes contained was probably pyritous copper.3
The sapphire of the ancients, described by
Theophrastus as sprinkled with gold (Xpvo.tracrro~),4 and in which Pliny says gold sparkles
(scintillat),5 is agreed by all to have been our
lapis lazuli.6 The name is Hebrew, and occurs
I De Lapid., c. 98.           2 See before, p. 86.
3 The cyanus of Homer, used in Achilles' shield, is, with
much reason, thought by Goguet (Orig. des Lois, vol. ii., p.
162) to have been polished steel colored blue by tempering.
4 De Lapid., c. 43.
5 H. N., xxxiii., 21. Dionysius Periegetes also fixes
upon this same character, and speaks of rocks in India
which contain a beautiful vein of golden and azure sapphire:
"Xpvo'eiv Kvavtir Te KaXtiv,rX6Ka araTrfetpoto."
Jam. Min., i., 341; Beck., Hist. of Inv., ii., 322.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 221
repeatedly in the Old Testament, applied to
the same substance.l  What the ancients mistook for gold was the iron pyrites often disseminated in this mineral, and forming a feature in
its external character, upon which, under their
mistake, they were inclined to lay much stress.
It is evident, however, that other minerals besides lapis lazuli were included under the name
sapphire. Pliny speaks of purple sapphires, of
which the best, he says, are the Median.2
In the case of this mineral, as of the lastmentioned, cyanus, the distinction of male and
female was adopted, those of an azure color being considered males.
Pliny, it is true, says that sapphires nowhere
occurred translucent; we might otherwise suppose that the Oriental sapphire, wherever
known, was included under the name; as also
blue quartz, and blue fluor-spar, which are now
sometimes called by jewelers false sapphire.
1 Jam. Min., ii., 324.
2 H. N., xxxvii., 39. Whatever the purple sapphire may
have been, it was at a later period more highly valued than
the azure stone. Epiphanius observes that there were many
kinds of sapphire, and that the one called royal (fiaatl:cog),
spotted with gold (Xpvaartyrl7,) was less admired than that
altogether purple (tO6Xov -ropovpgiwv), which occurred in
India. (De 12 Gemmis, p. 227.)




222  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
There are in collections many engraved specimens of lapis lazuli, regarded as antiques,l but
no engraved sapphires that are not of modern
date.
The first rank among purple or violet colored gems is assigned by Pliny to the Indian amethyst, which may, possibly, have been the violet-colored sapphire, or Oriental amethyst.
Those which he describes as easily engraved
(scalpturis faciles) may have been the violetcolored fluor-spar, now called false -amethyst;3
and the variety of quartz which is now commonly styled amethyst is well described by him
as that fifth kind which approaches -crystal;
the purple vanishing and fading into white (ad
viciniam crystalli descendit albicante purpurm
defectu). Some mineralogists think the amethyst of the ancients to have been what we call
garnet, but there seems little in its description
resembling the garnet, except that one kind of
it approached the hyacinth in color, as Pliny
and Epiphanius4 observe; that is, had a very' Beck., Hist. of Inv., iii., 322.   2 Jam. Min., i., 37.
3 The ancients, however, very frequently engraved upon
amethystine quartz; and there are, in the Royal Library at
Paris, many fine engraved gems of this mineral. (Jam.
Min., i., 148.)          4 De 12 Gemmis, p. 229.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  223
strong shade of red; and so sometimes has our
amethyst. The way in which it is characterized by Dionysius Periegetes, as in a slight degree purple,' suits perfectly with our amethyst,
but in no respect with garnet; and we see our
amethyst plainly indicated in one of the reasons assigned by Pliny for its name2 —that it
does not reach the color of wine, but first fades
into violet. He afterward suggests another,
which is the more common derivation; saying
that the Magi falsely assured that these gems
were preservative against intoxication, whence
their name.
The Indian amethysts are described as possessing- "absolutum felicis purpurae colorem;"
and the artists who imitated this gem endeavored especially to produce this tint. Theophrastus twice mentions the amethyst (aMyOvaov),3 but not in such a way as to determine
it;. classing it in one place with crystal, as diaphanous, and afterward observing that it is
wine-colored (olvowrbv ri Xp'q)
The ancient hyacinth is thought by Saumaise to have been our ruby, which the PerX "Kal yXvKcEpiv jdinOvarov irrlpdEla iropvvpeovaav" (v.
1122).
2 Ap Ovarog, from a and uOv.   3 De Lapid., c. 54, 57.




224   ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
sians and Arabians still call yacut; a name
derived from v6KLvOos, hyacinth.  This name
may, however, have been used with as little
discrimination as that of ruby is at present, to
designate several very different minerals, and
among them may be some that are still called
hyacinth; as several varieties of zircon, and
the hyacinth of Compostella, a red ferruginous
quartz. Jameson enumerates seven different
minerals besides zircon, to which the name hyacinth has been applied; and he appears to
think that the ancient hyacinth was either amethyst or sapphire. All that Pliny says about
this gem, from which any aid toward determining it can be derived, amounts to this, that it
was related to, but differed greatly from, the
amethyst, in that the lustre and brilliant violet
of the amethyst were much fainter and feebler
in the hyacinth; which certainly does not well
agree with the idea of hyacinth being our ruby,
but favors, rather, the opinion before noticed,
that the hyacinth of Pliny was our amethyst,
and the ancient amethyst our garnet.
The chrysolithus of Pliny2 was, as Werner
thinks, the stone which we call topaz. But the
" I1113 emicans in amethysto fulgor violaceus dilutus est
in hyacintho."             2 Pliny, xxxvii., 42.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   225
ancient name appears to have been applied
somewhat loosely, as the modern is, to a great
variety of minerals. The chrysolites obtained
from 2Ethiopia were "aureo fulgore translucentes;" but to these were preferred the Indian, which may have been the yellow sapphire
or Oriental topaz. The best were set open (A
jour).l Underneath others a foil of brass was
laid. Those were called chryselectri whose
color approached to that of amber (electrum).
Those of Pontus might be distinguished by
their lightness. They were, perhaps, yellow
quartz, the Bohemian topaz; or yellow fluorspar, the false topaz; whose specific gravities
are to that of the Oriental topaz as three and
four respectively to five.
The chrysolite obtained in Spain, from the
same locality with rock-crystal, we may suppose was yellow quartz. Such as had a white
vein running through them, called leucochrysi,
were probably agate; yellow quartz, with a
vein of chalcedony; and the capnise2 we may
translate smoke topaz. Some resembled glass
of a bright saffron color; and those made of
glass could not be distinguished by the sight,
"' Funda includuntur perspicue."
2 A name derived from c:a7rvo', smoke.
P




226  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
but might be detected by the touch (of the
tongue, no doubt), as being warmer.l Other
varieties were melichrysos and xanthus, both
from India: the former a hard, brittle, trans,
lucent gem, of a bright golden or honey-yellow
color;2 the latter a very common gem in India, and afterward described as of a whitish
yellow.3
The asteria of Pliny4 is that variety of opal
called girasole, from its reflecting a reddish
light when turned toward the sun. Pliny describes with peculiar felicity of language the
manner of this reflection.5   This gem  came
from India and from Carmania, those of the latter country being preferred. Pliny describes
it as difficult to engrave; the difficulty arising,
probably, not from its hardness, but from the
numerous minute fissures which traverse opal
in all directions, and to which it is supposed to
owe the playful variation of its colors.' "Tactus deprehendit, tepidior in vitreis."-PLiNy, H.
N., xxxvii., 44.
2  "Veluti per aurum sincero melle translucens."
3,, E fulvo candicans."     4 H. N., xxxvii., 47.
5 " Inclusam lucem pupill1e modo quandam continet, ac
transfundit cum inclinatione, velut intus ambulantem ex alio
atque alio loco reddens, eademque contraria Soli regerens
candicantes radios, unde nomen invenit."




AN CIENT  M INERALOGY.   227
The gem called astrios by Pliny, which occurred in India and on the shores of Pallene,
but best in Carmania, and which, "nearly related to crystal, shines from a point within it
like a star with the brightness of the full
moon,"' we might, but for the extreme rarity
of that stone, conjecture to have been asteriated
sapphire. Some crystals of quartz, which exhibit irised colors,.and reflections of light from
their interior, might answer to Pliny's description tolerably well; but far the most probable
conjecture, as regards this stone, at least, is
that of Werner, who supposes the moon-stone
of Ceylon, a variety of adularia, to be the tvaXoEa8e2 of Theophrastus, the asteria, the astrios,
and the androdamas of Pliny.3 Dionysius Periegetes, when speaking of Pallene, one of
Pliny's localities for this gem, says," There is
produced the beautiful stone asterius, shining
like a star."4
The astroites5 does not seem to be determ"Intus a centro seu stella lucet fulgore lunme plense."H. N., xxxvii., 48.
2 Of which Theophrastus says nothing more than that it
both reflects and transmits light. (De Lapid., c. 54.)
3 Jam. Min., i., 362.             4 Verse 327.
5 Pliny, H. N., xxxvii., 49. Saumaise would read this
name astriotes. (Exercit. Plin., p. 533, b E.)




228   ANCIE'NT MINERALOGY.
ined, though Cardan speaks of it as of something known.1 We might, perhaps, be justified
in supposing it to have been an organic fossil,
the asteria, or stella marina; or, since that is a
very rare fossil,2 perhaps a madreporite.
Of the astrobolos Pliny merely says that it
resembled the eyes of a fish, and had in the sunshine a white lustre. These characters would
agree well with apophyllite, called fischaugenstein by Werner, ichthyophthalme and ichthyophthalmite by other mineralogists, from the resemblance of its peculiar pearly lustre to that
of the eyes of a fish. But astrobolos is more
likely to have been that variety of adularia
called fish's eye.
The ceraunia, which Pliny now considers
separately, appears to be the same mineral he
has just before mentioned as a variety of what
he calls astrios. The description he gives of it
would, as far as it goes, be a very good one of
a transparent crystal of adularia, exhibiting, as
such crystal sometimes does, a bluish-white
reflection from a movable spot in its interior.
This serves to confirm Werner's conjecture that
1 See Dalecamp on Plin., xxxvii., 49.
2 See Park., Org. Rem., vol. iii., p. 1.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  229
astrios was the variety of adularia which is
called moon-stone.
Those other two kinds of ceraunia, the one
black, the other reddish, and in shape resembling axes, seem to have been something wholly different from the one just mentioned. They
were, perhaps, varieties of jasper or of the axestone.'
That fourth kind which was found only
where lightning had fallen would seem to have
been an a6rolite.2
Some varieties of the ceraunia, however,
were so called from a superstitious belief that
they were a protection, to those who carried
them about their persons, against the effects of
lightning.3   And even to the aerolite, which
was called ceraunius, as Marbodsaus asserts,4
because it was thought to be found in those
places only which had been struck by the thunl See Cleav. Min., p. 269, 340.
2 a " Ventorum rabie cum turbidus aestuat aL3r,
Cum tonat horrendum, cum fulgurat igneus aether,
Nubibus elisus, ccelo cadit ille lapillus,
Cujus apud Graecos extat de fulmine nomen."
MARB., Carm. de Gemmis, ~ 30.
3 Salm., Plin. Exercit., p. 179, a B.
4   "Illis quippe locis, quos constat fulmine tactos,
Iste lapis tantum reperiri posse putatur."
MAaB., Carm. de Gemmis.




230  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
derbolt (cEpavvos), this same virtue is ascribed.l
The iris seems to have been a very limpid,
prismatic crystal of quartz, which received its
appellation from its casting upon the walls of
the chamber the colors of the rainbow when exposed to the sun's rays. Brongniart supposed
the iridescent varieties of rock-crystal to be the
iris; but Pliny speaks of the colors, not as seen
in the gem itself, but as reflected from the walls
of the chamber.
The zeros,2 which resembled in appearance
the iris, but did not in like manner exhibit the
prismatic colors, may have owed that difference
merely to the imperfection noticed by Pliny, a
speckled vein that ran across the crystal. Corsi
supposes it to have been smoky quartz, smoke
topaz.
We come now3 to Pliny's alphabetical and
other concluding lists of minerals, as to the
greater part of which we should in vain seek
to determine what they were. In very many
cases the Greek name, with Pliny's Latin in"Qui caste gerit hunc a fulmine non ferietur;
Nec domus aut villse, quibus affuerit lapis ille."
MaZm., Carm. de Gemmis, ~ 30.
2 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 53.        3 Ibid.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 231
terpretation of it, is the only trace left to guide
our investigation; and we are as far from
knowing what the minerals so designated were,
as Theophrastus, if recalled to life, received in
a modern cabinet, and presented with its catalogue, would be from recognizing idocrase, harmotome, and epidote merely from their names,
although he might perceive that these names
indicated certain characters or properties of the
substances to which they are applied.
As to some of the minerals alphabetically arranged there is no doubt that they were organic fossils.  Such was Hammonis cornu, "reckoned among the most sacred gems of Egypt;
of a golden color, and in shape resembling a
ram's horn."'  And such appear to have been
balanites, belus, and tecolithus;2 bucardia; encardia, of which three varieties are specified;
enorchis; euneos, resembling the kernel of an
olive, striated like a shell, and not very white;
idoai dactyli, of an iron color, and resembling
the human thumb; meconites; nympharena,
Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 60.
2 These three are one and the same mineral, the lapis
Iudaicus, called tecolithus from its fancied lithontriptic virtues. Dioscorides describes it (v., 155) as of a very regular
shape, resembling an acorn, white, and with parallel lines
traced upon its surface, as if in a turning-lathe.




232  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
like the teeth of the hippopotamus; ostracias,
or ostracites,l so called from its resemblance
to oysters (ostrea); phoenicitis; phycitis; and
syringitis.
The fossil ivory that Theophrastus speaks
of,2 and the bony stones, and bones produced
in the earth, which Pliny cites him as mentioning, were, no doubt, organic remains; as also
the palmati, which Pliny, in the same passage,
says were found near Munda, and that as often
as you  broke  the  rock.3   Other substances
mentioned in these lists of Pliny are not to be
classed with minerals; as, for example, bronte,
cinvedia, corallis,4 chloritis, dracontites, gorgoDioscorides, too, speaks of a stone, ostracites, resembling
a shell (XieOo~ rcTpacirrlq, o/Iotog o7rpac,v., 165), which was
flat, divisible into laminae, and used by women as a substitute for pumice in removing hairs. That may have been the
same with this supposed fossil. He elsewhere (v., 84), however, calls a variety of furnace calamine 6rpaiKrtC, and,
since Pliny in this alphabetical list speaks of a cadmitis, between which and ostracitis he makes but a slight distinction,
it is possible they may be all of them one and the same thing,
called by different names.         2 De Lapid., c. 65.
3 For the views of ancient authors respecting organic fossils, see Park., Org. Rem., vol. i., 15.
4 Corallis, described as resembling vermilion, and brought
from India and Syene, was probably red coral, as was also
gorgonia, so called, Pliny says (xxxvii., 59), because changed




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 233
nia, hysenia, sauritis. Some minerals mentioned in these lists had been previously spoken of
at greater length; as alabastrites, asbestos, capnitis, callaYs, coralloachates, obsidianus, chrysolithus, chrysoprasus, chalcitis, and hematites.
Other names, again, are synonymous with those
of minerals before examined; and not a few
of these gems we may suspect to be, like the
strange virtues and properties ascribed to them,
wholly imaginary.
Here and there in the lists we recognize a
mineral which still retains its ancient name,
and is sufficiently well described to leave no
doubt concerning it; as the heliotropium, a
gem which occurred in ]Ethiopia, Africa, and
Cyprus, of a leek-green color, with blood-red
veins. Its name, according to Pliny, is derived
from the manner in which it reflected the solar
to the hardness of stone; for the ancients supposed coral to
grow as a vegetable underneath the waves, and to harden
into stone when removed from its native element. Wherefore Ovid says,
"Quo primum contigit auras
Tempore durescit, mollis fuit herba sub undis."
In the Orphic poem (v. 511, seqq.) this transformation is described at length. See also Pliny, H. N., xxxii., 11. The
Carmen de Gemmis of Marbodxeus begins its account of coral
thus (~ 22):
" Coralius lapis est, dum vivit in sequore, vimen."




234 ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
rays when immersed in water, and from its being used as a mirror in which to observe a solar
eclipse.
But let us proceed to notice now, in Pliny's
order, such other minerals in these lists as can
be determined, or respecting which any probable conjecture may be formed.
The achates (agate), which stands first in order,' is spoken of by Theophrastus as a beautiful and rare stone, from the River Achates in
Sicily, which sold at a high price;2 but Pliny
tells us that in his time it was, though once
highly valued, no longer in esteem; it being
then found in many places, of large size and
very diversified appearance. He specifies eight
varieties, which had appropriate names, derived
from their respective colors, or from some other
distinctive character.
That in which jasper was associated with agate, the jasper-agate of modern mineralogists,3
was called iaspachates. Cerachates was of a
wax color; a variety little valued, because of
its abundance. Sardachates was composed in
part of the sard or carnelian.  Haemachates,
sprinkled with spots of jasper, or blood-red'Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 54.  2 De Lapid., c. 58.
3 Cleav. Min., p. 267.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.   235
chalcedony, was the variety now called dotted
agate. Leucachates was, as its name imports,
of a whitish color. Dendrachates was our dendritic agate; a variety beautifully described in
the Orphic poem under the name of axa'Tr)
&Ev8eiEtCc.l Coralloachates was so called from
some resemblance that it bore to coral.  Marbodaus speaks of it as a gem containing saffron-colored veins;2 and Pliny describes it as
sprinkled, like the sapphire, with spots of gold.
May they not, in this case, have confounded
with agate yellow fluor-spar, containing, as it
sometimes does, disseminated particles of iron
pyrites? For that other minerals besides agate
are comprehended in this list is very certain,
since the next mentioned variety, autachates,3
is described as diffusing, when burned, a fragrance resembling that of myrrh. It is not
worth our while to consider, with Pliny, the
medicinal virtues of this stone; but it deserves
to be noted that he says physicians made small
mortars of it.
lAndrodamas is described as possessing a silvery lustre, and a cubical form like that of dice.
The same name has been previously given to a
Orph., Lith., v., 230.   2 Marb., De Gemmis, ~ 2.
3 Or, as Saumaise would read, stactachates.




236   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
variety of what Pliny calls hematite, which we
found reason to regard as magnetic iron ore.'
That androdamas was described as of a black
color, while this is said to have a silvery lustre
(argenti nitorem), which seems to forbid our
regarding them as the same mineral. We may,
nevertheless, suspect some relationship between
the two, since the one now under consideration
is said by Pliny to resemble adamas; that is,
probably, the magnetic oxyde of iron- so called.2
All circumstances being considered, we might
venture to pronounce this androdamas magnetic pyrites, which, like the common sulphuret
of iron, is sometimes found in cubes.3  The lustre, indeed, is here said to be that of silver; but
this false character, supposing it magnetic pyrites, may easily have been transferred to it
from the arsenical pyrites with which it is
sometimes found associated. And this latter
is, perhaps, the mineral designated by the name
which follows next in Pliny, argyrodamas; as
to which it seems to have been undecided
whether it was identical with or different from
androdamas. There appears to be as little
about this mineral as about the vaXoEoi8c of
See before, p. 177.     2 See before, p. 193.
3 Cleav. Min., p. 591.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 237
Theophrastus to justify our regarding it as
moon-stone.'
Antipathes was a name common to several
plants and minerals thought to possess the virtue ascribed by the Magi to the substance here
so called by Pliny, and which is supposed to be
black coral.
Arabica has been already mentioned as Arabus lapis, while here it is Arabica gemma. It
is spoken of by Dioscorides also,2 and by Galen, and was probably a fine white marble.
xromatites, said by some of Pliny's commentators to have been amber, seems to have resembled in its properties the fossil copal discovered at Highgate Hill, near London.
Augites was thought by many, Pliny says, to
be different from callais. The inference to be
drawn from this remark is, that generally it was
regarded as the same with that mineral, which
was probably turquoise.3
Amphitane, otherwise called chrysocolla, occurred in the form of a cube, and was said to
possess magnetic properties; whence we might
suppose it to have been magnetic pyrites in a
cubic form. It may have been called chryso1 See before, p. 227.      2 Lib. v., c. 149.
3 See before, p. 214.




238   ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.
colla from its supposed property of attracting
gold as well as iron;1 for it seems to have been
a wholly different thing from the chrysocolla
of Theophrastus and Pliny spoken of before.2
Aphrodisiace is supposed by Dalecamp to
have been some variety of agate; but Pliny
mentions a variety of amethyst called Veneris
gemma; and the only description of the gem
now in question, " ex candido rufa est," as well
as its name, aphrodisiace, agrees with the belief
that, like the gem of Venus, it was amethyst.
lEgyptilla seems to have been a name common to several varieties of agate. It was, perhaps, the ancient denomination of what is still
called Egyptian pebble; a striped jasper; the
quartz agatheon of Haiiy.
Baptes3 is thought, from its description and
its name, to have been amber, dyed or stained
of some other than its natural color.4
V Beli oculus appears to have been the mineral
now called cat's eye.5
Bostrychites may have been amianthus.
"Affirmaturque natura ejus, quae magnetis: nisi quod
trahere quoque aurum traditur." —PLIN., H. N., xxxvii., 54.
2 Page 81.            3 Plin., H. N., xxxvii., 55.
See before, p. 144.
5 Boethius de Boot, Hardouin, Millin, and Corsi all agree
in so considering it.




ANCIENT  MINERALOGY.  239
Bucardia is thought by Dalecamp and Hardouin to have been turquoise.
Catochitis, the same commentators think, was
either amber, or some variety of bitumen.
Cepitis was, perhaps, an agate.
Chalcophonos, of a black color, and which,
when struck, rang with the sound of brass, was
perhaps clink-stone.
Choaspitis is, by Dalecamp, upon apparently
slight grounds, supposed to have been chrysoberyl.
Chrysopis is, by the same critic, thought to
have been hyacinth; and eupetalos, a variety
of opal.
Lepidotis,which resembled the scales of fish,
we might venture to call lepidolite.
Morochites, described as leek-colored, but its
streak white-for so the words "lacte sudat"
seem, by commentators generally, to be understood - was otherwise called moroxus; and
hence has Karsten derived his name for asparagus-stone, which he calls moroxite. This morochites or moroxus we have already, when
speaking of saline substances, found occasion
to consider.'
See before, p. 138.




240    ANCIENT  M INERALOGY.
Samothracia, which was black, light, and resembling wood, may have been lignite; and
Selenites, bating the fabulous part of its description, we may regard as the same mineral
still called selenite.
Pliny concludes his treatise upon gems with
some general remarks, and directions for distinguishing the true from false.  The difficulty
of doing which, he says, was great, because the
false stones were sometimes made from true
ones of a different kind. The sardonyx, for
example, by cementing three gems of as many
different colors, black, white, and red.l We
find Theophrastus speaking of counterfeit emeralds; and Pliny, of beryl, opal, ruby, amethyst, and other stones, so well imitated that it
was not easy to distinguish true from false.
The skill of the ancients in their manufacture of glass was such that they not only made
H. N., xxxvii., 75. A similar fraud is sometimes practiced now by cutting, in like manner, colored glass and rockcrystal; giving to each one plain surface, and joining them
by that with a colorless cement; then setting them in such
manner that the colored glass and the joint by which it is
united to the limpid crystal shall be inclosed within the metal.
By means of these doublets, as they are called, may stones
of any color be so well counterfeited that the fraud can scarcely be detected. (See Min. des Gens du Mlonde, p. 135.)




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 241
it of a crystalline purity;' shaped it by blowing; ground it in the lathe; and carved it like
silver;2 but the collection which Mr. Dodwell
first formed and brought into notice at Rome,
proves that they could successfully, and did
commonly imitate, by means of it, almost every
known marble and every sort of precious stone.
Beckmann speaks4 of two ancient gems in the
Museum Victorium at Rome, a chrysolite and
an emerald; factitious, both of them, but perfectly well executed; perfectly transparent,
and colored throughout, and free externally and
internally from the smallest blemish.
The Portland (once called the Barberini)
vase, by some regarded as a sardonyx, and by
others, for a long time, supposed to be porcelain, is now ascertained to be glass. It is semitransparent, of a deep blue color, with opaque
white ornaments cut by the lapidary in basrelief.
Plin., H. i., xxxvi., 67.
2 Beck., Hist. of Inv., iii., 208.
3 Gell's Pomp., vol. i., p. 98. Winckelmann asserts that
the ancients had carried the art of working-glass to a perfection which we are yet far from having equaled, and he
appeals to works that still remain for the proof of his assertion. (See Stor. delle A. di Disegno, vol. i., p. 26, 28, 29.)
4 Hist. of Inv., i., 199.
Q




242 ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
The period at which glass was first invented
is unknown, but the process of glass-blowing
is represented in paintings at Beni-Hassan, executed 1700 years before the Christian era;
and a glass bead has been found in Egypt, bearing the name of a Pharaoh who lived 200 years
later. Drinking-vessels of glass, of Egyptian
manufacture, are repeatedly mentioned by Martial.2
Those who wish to inquire iito the subject
of malleable glass, to which Pliny is not the
only ancient who alludes, will find the authorities collected under the proper head in Lardner's Cabinet Encyclopmedia.
We had before occasion to remark that, even
at the early period of their exodus, the children
of Israel had among them engravers of precious
stones, They, of course, derived their art from
Egypt; in which country, and in India, we, at
a later period, find that such stones were not
only engraved, but imitated with consummate
skill. From one or other of those countries
Greece learned both these arts, and they were
practiced in Pliny's time by his own countrymen also, though, probably, with less skill than
1 Wilk., Anc. Egyp., iii., 89.
2 Epig., lib. xiv., 94, 114, etc.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY.  243
by the Greeks. Here again, therefore, do we
find occasion to observe the difference between
the scientific knowledge of these ancients and
their ingenious art. They were fully persuaded that rock-crystal was permanent ice,
and called it, accordingly, ypvaraXXoc;' but,
knowing thus little of its nature, they could,
nevertheless, not only form beautiful vases,
drinking-cups, and other vessels of it, many of
which still remain to testify their skill, but impart to it various colors,2 and produce from it
such close imitations of the emerald and other
gems that, Pliny says, there was no more gainful fraud practiced; and he declines to point
out the authors from whom it might be learned, but prefers rather to suggest some criteria
for distinguishing the false gems from the true.
One distinctive character, he remarks, is the
superior weight of the true gem. Others are
the uniformity of its structure, its freedom from
vesicles within and from roughness on the surface, its lustre, and its hardness. He observes
that fragments of obsidian will not scratch true
1 See before, p. 187.
2 Seneca (Ep. xix.) ascribes to Democritus the discovery
"quemadmodum decoctus calculus in smaragdum converteretur;" which, Beckmann thinks, was by coloring rockcrystal. (Hist. of Inv., i., 198.)




244  ANCIENT MINERALOGY.
gems; but that with the diamond (adamante)
all of them may be engraved.
Of the multitude of stones we have seen
classed as gems, but a small portion was made
use of by the engraver. These were principally carnelians, and such others of the silicious
kind as possessed the properties required for
the nicest execution, without being too valuable in themselves to allow of having their
weight and lustre impaired by the engraver's
tool.'
To conclude now, it may be conceded by an
admirer of the ancients that as naturalists they
are not presented to us in a very favorable
light; that their acquaintance with natural science was empirical-that of an artisan rather
than of the philosopher. But they could not
have practiced with success so many ingenious
arts, unless they had known the properties of
a vast number of bodies; and their ignorance
in other points, where knowledge is thought indispensable to modern artists, only renders it
the greater wonder that they were able to ac1 On the art of polishing and engraving precious stones,
one of the most curious and ingenious of all antiquity, see a
learned chapter in Goguet's Origine des Loix, etc., tom. ii.,
p. 111. See also Winckelmann, Stor. delle Arti del Disegno, vol. i., p. 25; vol. ii., p. 20.




ANCIENT MINERALOGY. 245
complish what they did. Pliny breaks into exclamations at the prodigious works achieved by
man in his search for the precious metals in
the bowels of the earth, comparing them to the
labors of the giants. And well he may, since
he has to speak of penetrating mountains, with
the means which then could be employed, to a
distance of near eight thousand feet, through
flint,' and a substance which he describes as
harder still than that to pierce. How slowly,
if deprived of the aid of gunpowder, would our
miners, conduct such operations. But in this
instance, as in many others, art and ingenuity
supplied the place of tools; and one of-the greatest philosophers of our own age2 has acknowledged that the ancients were, in all pursuits
which require only the native powers of the intellect or the refinements of taste, pre-eminent;
that their literature and their works of art offer
models which have never been excelled; that
they possessed, as if instinctively, the perception of every thing beautiful, grand, and decorous; and that as natural philosophers they failed, not from want of genius or application, but
merely because they followed a mistaken path.
1 H. N., xxxiii., 21. Silicem is his word; but here, as
often elsewhere, it may mean limestone.
2 Sir H. Davy, Philos. of Chem., p. 4, Introd.








IND EX.
Page                                     Page
Achates..................... 234   Atramentum  sutorium.. 131
Adamas.............. 191-1.94   Augites....................  237
B.gyptilla.................. 238   Auripigmentum..........   78
iErugo......................   85   Autachates................ 235
/Es......................... 43-8
~tites...................... 175   Baptes...................... 238
Alabaster....... 19, 167-170   Basaltes.................... 111
Alumen............... 124-128  Basanites.................. 180
Amber.....................  143  Bdellium..................   17
Amethystus................ 222   Beli oculus................. 238
Amianthus............... 152   Beryllus.................... 201
Ampelitis..................   96  Bitumen............... 18, 141
Amphitane.................   237   Bostrychites............... 238
Androdamas.........  177, 235   Botryitis..................   67
Anthracion.......... 105, 208  Bucardia................... 239
Anthracites......... 171, 209
Anthrax.................... 208   Cadmia.................. 46, 67
Antimony.......... 28, 68, 70   Cadmitis..................  232
Antipathes................. 237  Callais................ 214
Aphrodisiace.............. 238  Capnia..................... 225
Arabica................... 237  Capnitis....................   67
Argentum  vivum.........   28   Carbunculus............. 206
Argyrodamas.............   236   Carchedonius.............. 211
Armenium...............   90  Cassiterides Insule......    62
Aromatites................ 237  Catochitis.................. 239
Arsenicum................   78  Cepitis...................... 239
Asbestus.................... 150   Cerach ates.................        234
Asphaltum................ 141  Ceraunia................ 228
Aster................... 97, 100   Cerussa..................   91
Asteria.................... 226  Chalcanthum........ 129, 131
Astrios......................  227  Chalcitis............. 128-130
Astrobolos.................. 228 Chalcophono........... 239
Astroites-Astriotes.....   227  Chernites...................               172




248                        INDE:X.
Page                              Page
Choaspitis.................. 239  Gagates..................... 146
Chryselectri................ 225  Galactites.................. 138
Chryites................... 180  Galaxias................... 138
Chrysitis....................  81  Geodes...................... 175
Chrysoberyllus............ 201  Glass...... 134, 186, 188, 240
Chrysocolla....... 81-84, 237  Gold...................... 29-35
Chrysolithus.............. 224  Gorgonia.................. 232
Chrysopis.................. 239  Gypsum............... 161-164
Chrysoprasius....... 202, 215
Chrysopteros............... 213  Hvemachates............... 234
Chrysothrix................ 190  Hoematites................. 175
Cinnabar............... 71-73  Hammonis cornu......... 231
Coal.........................-149  Heliotropium............. 233
Cceruleum..............  85-90  Heraclean stone.13, 157, 158
Collyrium..................  96  Hyacinthus................ 223
Copper................... 40, 43  Hyaloides................ 226
Corallis..................... 232  Hydrargyrus..............  28
Coralloachates............ 235
Coticula.............. 159, 180  Iaspachates................ 234
Creta.......................  92  Iaspis.... 194, 197, 216-219
Creta annularia..........  97  Idaei dactyli............... 231
argentaria.........  97  Iridicum................... 234
-    - carica.............. 101  Iris.......................... 230
Chalcidica......... 101  Iron............. 40, 41, 49-59
Cimolia..... 93, 94, 99
Eretria.......... 89, 92  Lapis JEthiopicus........ 112
-  Sarda..............  95       - alabastrites.........
Selinusia........ 89, 92                     19, 167-170
Crystallus............ 187-191    -     Albanas............ 120
Cyanus............ 85-90, 220  - -  Anitianus......... 121
--   Armenius..........  90
Dendrachates............. 235  -         Asius............... 172
Diamond........ 23, 191, 192        --  Assius............... 171
Dragon's blood............  72    -   Etesius.............. 180
Gabinus............ 12L
Electrum...................  38      L- ydius............. 159
Emerald....... 195, 199, 291.....Lygdinus........... 170
Encardia.....2..            31........ 231   melitites............ 137
Enhydros.................. 190        - molaris........ 172, 173
Euneos.....................  231    --  ollaris.181
Eupetalos.................. 239  -        arius......... 103, 180
- Phrygius........... 171




INDEX.                                249
Page                                 Page
Lapis Pcenicus..........   180  Nilion................ 216
- Schistos............ 177  Nitrum............ 20, 135-137
- Siphnius........... 181  Nympharena.............. 231
- specularis.... 164-167
- Taenarius........... 180  Obsidianus........... 178, 179
-  Thebaicus.... 110, 180  Onyx...... 167, 169, 170, 205
Tiburtinus......... 115  Opalus................... 203
Lead................. 59, 63-65  Ophites..................... 108
Lepidotis................... 239  Orichalcum..............  46
Leucachates.............. 235  Ostracias, Ostracites..... 232
Leucochrysi............... 225
Leucogea.................. 138  Paederos................... 203
Leucographia............. 138  Palmati..................... 232
Leucographis..............  138  Paraetonium............   98
Linum  vivum............. 152  Phengites.............. 112
Lipareman stone...........  178  Placodes..............   67
Lychnis......... 190, 194, 210  Pnigitis...............  98
Lychnites.................. 103  Pompholyx................   68
Lyncurion.................. 144  Porphyrites.............. 110
Porus............ 114, 118, 172
Magnesian stone..........           Prasites................... 215
156,158,181   Prasius..............   215
Magnet............ 9, 153-158  Pras oides...................  213
Marbles.............. 101-110  Pumex................ 177
Massicot....................   80  Purpurissum...............76
Melanteria................ 131  Puteolanus pulvis........ 116
Melichrysus................ 226  Puzzolana............... 116
Melinum...................  98  Pyrites............. 172, 174
Mercury................. 27, 65  Pyropoecilus............. 110
Minium.................. 71-73  Pyrrhopcecilus............ 110
Mirrors...................  38
Misy........................ 130  Rubrica............. 74, 75
Molochites................ 216
Molybdena................          65  Sal ammoniacus.... 131-136
Morochites.......... 138, 239  Salt (fossil).............  20
Morochthus.......... 138, 239  Samothracia............. 240
Moroxus.............. 138, 239  Sandaraca............. 76, 77
Murrhea, Murrhina 169, 185  Sandaresus............ 209
Sandaster.............. 209
Naphtha................. 142  Sandix...............   76
Natron......................  21  Sapphirus........... 220'222
Naxium.....................  214  Sarda................. 205




250                           INDEX.
Page                                   Page
Sardachates............... 234   Syricum....................   76
Sardonyx.................. 204
Saxa Rubra.............. 120  Tecolithus..................  231
Schistos (lapis)...... 171, 177  Terra Cilicia.............   96
Selenite............... 112, 166              Lemnia.............  74
Selenites.................... 240  -           Melia........... 98, 99
Siderites.................. 193               Samia............ 97, 99
Sil...........................  77.       sigillata............  74
Silex................... 119, 175              Tymphaiaca......  99
Silex Tusculanus......... 122  Theamedes................ 154
Silver.....................  35-38  Thracian stone............ 146
Sinopic rubrica............   74  Thyitis (lapis)............. 139
Sinopis.....................   70  Tin....................  59-65
Smaragdus...........  194-201   Topazius............... 23, 212
Smyris (lapis)............ 182  Tophus...................... 113
Sory......................... 130
Sphragides................. 218  Usta........................  75
Spinus.......................  150
Spodos......................   68  Veneris gemma........... 238
Stannum..................  60
Steel......................  54-59   Whetstones................ 182
Stibium.....................  68
Succinum.................. 144  Xanthus................... 226
Sulphur.................    140
Syenites...................  110  Zeros........................ 230
Synophites..........  138, 139  Zinc.......... 28, 64, 67, 70
THE END.




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