| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 34.46 | Plin. Nat. 34.47 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 34.48 |
The nature of lead next comes to be considered. There are two kinds of it, the black and the white. [Note] The white is the most valuable: it was called by the Greeks "cassiteros," [Note] and there is a fabulous story told of their going in quest of it to the islands of the Atlantic, and of its being brought in barks made of osiers, covered with hides. [Note] It is now known that it is a production of Lusitania and Gallæcia. [Note] It is a sand found on the surface of the earth, and of a black colour, and is only to be detected by its weight. It is mingled with small pebbles, particularly in the dried beds of rivers. The miners wash this sand, and calcine the deposit in the furnace. It is also found in the gold mines that are known as "alutiæ," [Note]
the stream of water which is passed through them detaching certain black pebbles, mottled with small white spots and of the same weight [Note] as gold. Hence it is that they remain with the gold in the baskets in which it is collected; and being separated in the furnace, are then melted, and become converted into white lead. [Note]
Black lead is not procured in Gallæcia, although it is so greatly abundant in the neighbouring province of Cantabria; nor is silver procured from white lead, although it is from black. [Note] Pieces of black lead cannot be soldered without the intervention of white lead, nor can this be done without employing oil; [Note] nor can white lead, on the other hand, be united without the aid of black lead. White lead was held in estimation in the days even of the Trojan War, a fact that is attested by Homer, who calls it "cassiteros." [Note] There are two different sources of black lead: it being procured either from its own native ore, where it is produced without the intermixture of any other substance, or else from an ore which contains it in common with silver, the two metals being fused together. The metal which first becomes liquid in the furnace, is called "stannum;" [Note] the next that melts is silver; and the metal that remains behind is galena, [Note] the third constituent part of the mineral. On this last being again submitted to fusion black lead is produced, with a deduction of two-ninths.
| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 34.46 | Plin. Nat. 34.47 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 34.48 |
