ALUM. 133
so much scattered, that it requires an experienced andattentive observer to distinguish them. 1 *
This most useful drug, used as an article for dying, wasfirst, it is conceived, introduced for this purpose in Asia ,or, perhaps, Africa , whence it is traced to Egypt .
However useful alum might have been in dying and medicineamong the ancients, its good qualities appear to have been for-gotten in that universal revolution which convulsed the intellec-lual energies of the human race, upon the decline of theRoman empire: to describe this cause would be difficult;or, perhaps, it was owing to a variety of concurrent causes;but that such was the effect is manifest, as considerationand reflection inform us, that in that barbarous ignorance,which succeeded to the former light of science and art, notonly the arts of utility and convenience were iugulphed, butthose of taste and elegance swallowed up together.
There are certain alum-works existing in the neighbour-hood of Constantinople , named Cypsilla, or Chypsilar, accord-ing to Bellon : l the alum made at those works is calledalumeti Lelbium, or di Met elm. It is presumed the articleprocured now from Constantinople comes from that place.But so favourable was that neighbourhood for its production,that at the period of the capture of that city by the Saracen army, in 145-3, a factory was established there, for the re-ception of cloth from Italy , for the purpose of dyeing,Subsequent to this period, till the year 1469, the Italians ,and, in brief, the entire western world, had no alum butwhat they procured from the Turks; but at or about theperiod last named, John de Castro, an Italian, and a sonof the famous lawyer of the name of Paul de Castro,returned to Italy from his slavery in Turkey, (where he hadserved a manufacturer of that article,) and then enjoyed aplace in the Apostolic Chamber , Pius II . then fdling theApostolic chair. This De Castro discovered, being a manof genius, learning, and observation, a plant 3 growing atTolfa, in the kingdom of Naples, like what he had beenaccustomed to see in the vicinity of the alum-works nearByzantium, whence he concluded it possible that below theremight be a similar production; he made some experiments,and among others calcined a portion of the rock, &c.which yielded alum: on his return to Rome , he informed hisHoliness of the circumstance, which we will give in thewords recorded in the life of that pontiff. Addressing the
4 Belton’s Observations, at the end of Clusii Exotica t cap. ixi. p. 64.
3 The ilex aquifolium, or holly.