BOOK IX,

429

Other methods for reducing quicksilver are given below. Big-belliedpots, having been placed in the upper rectangular open part of a furnace,are filled with the crushed ore. Each of these pots is covered with a lidwith a long nozzle—commonly called a camfiana —in the shape of a bell, andthey are cemented. Each of the small earthenware vessels shaped like agourd receives two of these nozzles, and these are likewise cemented. Dried

A —Pots. B — Opercula. C — Nozzles. D— Gourd-shaped earthenware vessels.

wood having been placed in the lower part of the furnace and kindled, theore is heated until all the quicksilver has risen into the operculum which isover the pot; it then flows from the nozzle and is caught in the earthenwaregourd-shaped vessel.

" should be taken that it does not turn to lead.” There can be little doubt from Dioscorides’statement of its turning to lead that he had seen the metal antimony, although he thought ita species of lead. Of further interest in connection with the ancient knowledge of the metal isthe Chaldean vase made of antimony described by Berthelot (Comptes Rendus, 1887, civ,265). It is possible that Agricola knew the metal, although he gives no details as to de-sulphurizing it or for recovering the metal itself. In De Natura Fossilium (p. 181) he makesa statement which would indicate the metal, “ Stibium when melted in the crucible and“ refined has as much right to be regarded as a metal as is accorded to lead by most writers.“ If when smelted a certain portion be added to tin, a printer’s alloy is made from which” type is cast that is used by those who print books.” Basil Valentine, in his " Triumphal“ Chariot of Antimony,” gives a great deal that is new with regard to this metal, even if wep an accredit the work with no earlier origin than its publication—about 1600 ; it seems

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