| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.31 | Plin. Nat. 33.32 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.33 |
There is a mineral also found in these veins of silver, which yields a humour that is always [Note] liquid, and is known as "quicksilver." [Note] It acts as a poison [Note] upon everything, and pierces vessels even, making its way through them by the agency of its malignant properties. [Note] All substances float upon the surface of quicksilver, with the exception of gold, [Note] this being the only substance that it attracts to itself. [Note] Hence it is, that it is such an excellent refiner of gold; for, on being briskly shaken in an earthen vessel with gold, it rejects all the impurities that are mixed with it. When once it has thus expelled these superfluities, there is nothing to do but to separate it from the gold; to effect which, it is poured out upon skins that have been well tawed, and so, exuding through them like a sort of perspiration, it leaves the gold in a state of purity behind. [Note]
Hence it is, too, that when copper has to be gilded, [Note] a coat of quicksilver is laid beneath the gold leaf, which it retains in its place with the greatest tenacity: in cases, however, where the leaf is single, or very thin, the presence of the quicksilver is detected by the paleness of the colour. [Note] For this reason, persons, when meditating a piece of fraud, have been in the habit of substituting glair of egg for quicksilver, and then laying upon it a coat of hydrargyros, a substance of which we shall make further mention in the appropriate place. [Note] Generally speaking, quicksilver has not been found in any large quantities.
| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 33.31 | Plin. Nat. 33.32 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 33.33 |
