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BOOK XI.

sooner they are broken up; the less hot, the longer it takes, for now andthen they bend into the shape of copper basins. When the first cake hasbeen broken, the second is put on to the other fragments and beaten until itbreaks into pieces, and the rest of the cakes are broken up in the same mannerin due order. The head of the hammer is three palms long and one wide,and sharpened at both ends, and its handle is of wood three feet long.When they have been broken by the stamp, if cold, or with hammers if hot,the fragments of copper or the cakes are carried into the store-room for

copper.

A —Back wall. B— Walls at the sides. C— Upright posts. D —Chimney.E —The cakes arranged. F— Iron plates. G— Rocks. H — Rabble with two

prongs. I—Hammers.

The foreman of the works, according to the different proportions ofsilver in each centumpondium of copper, alloys it with lead, without whichhe could not separate the silver from the copper . 10 If there be a moderate

10 The details of the preparation of liquation cakes—“ leading ”—were matters of greatconcern to the old metallurgists. The size of the cakes, the proportion of silver in the originalcopper and in the liquated lead, the proportion of lead and silver left in the residual cakes, allhad to be reached by a series of compromises among militant forces. The cakes were generallytwo and one-half to three and one-half inches thick and about two feet in diameter, and