COBALT , SMALT, AND ZAFFER. 217

this pigment, as applicable to the arts. The first men-tion that has been perceived of it, occurs in somepapers, the information of Klotzsch, which lie first pub-lished from those papers of Christian Lehmann wehave had occasion to notice. Klotzsch was, as we under-stand, the author of an historical work, respecting themines in Misnia, as well as a clergyman at Scheibenberg ; hehad collected the materials for his historical work with greatindustry, embracing every degree of information withrespect to the natural history of the neighbouring country.He died at an advanced age, in 1688. From his account,at the period he wrote, the colour-mills Mere an hundredyears old. He commenced writing his narative towardsthe end of the thirty years’ war; whence, it is computedthose were first erected about 1540 or 1560. The circum-stance is related as follows, as given by Professor Beck-mann ; “ Christopher Schurer, a glass-maker at Platten,a place which belongs still to Bohemia , retired to Neudeck,where he established his business. Being once at Schnee-berg, he collected some of the beautiful coloured piecesof cobalt which were found there, tried them in his furnace;and finding that they melted, he mixed some cobalt withthe vitreous mass, and obtained fine blue glass. At firsthe prepared it only for the use of the potters; but in thecourse of time it w r as carried as an article of merchandizeto Nuremberg , and thence to Holland. As painting onglass was then much cultivated in the latter, the artiststhere knew better how to appreciate this invention. SomeDutchmen therefore repaired to Neudeck, in order thatthey might learn the process used in preparing this newpaint. By great promises they persuaded the inventor toremove to Magdeburg , where he also made glass from thecobalt of Schneeberg; but he again returned to his formerresidence, where he constructed a hand-mill to grind hisglass, and afterwards erected one driven by water. At thatperiod the colour was worth seven dollars and a half percwt. and in Holland from fifty to sixty florins. Eightcolour-mills of the same kind, for which roasted cobalt wasprocured in casks from Schneeberg, were soon constructedin Holland; and it appears that the Dutch must have beenmuch better acquainted with the art of preparing, andparticularly with that of grinding it, than the Saxons ;for the Elector, John George, sent for two colour-makersfrom Holland, and gave a thousand florins towards enablingthem to improve the art. He was induced to make thisadvance chiefly by a remark of the people of Schneeberg,