| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.21 | Plin. Nat. 33.22 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.23 |
There is also one other method of procuring gold; by making it from orpiment, [Note] a mineral dug from the surface of the earth in Syria, and much used by painters. It is just the colour of gold, but brittle, like mirror-stone, [Note] in fact. This substance greatly excited the hopes of the Emperor Caius, [Note] a prince who was most greedy for gold. He accordingly had a large quantity of it melted, and really did obtain some excellent gold; [Note] but then the proportion was so extremely small, that he found himself a loser thereby. Such was the result of an experiment prompted solely by avarice: and this too, although the price
of the orpiment itself was no more than four denarii per pound. Since his time, the experiment has never been repeated.
| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.21 | Plin. Nat. 33.22 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.23 |
