218
COBALT, SMALT, AND ZAFPER.
that the part of the cobalt which dropped down while itwas roasting, contained more colour than the roasted cobaltitself. In a little time other colour-mills were erectedaround Schneeberg. Hans Burghard, a merchant andchamberlain of Schneeberg, built one, by which the elevenmills at Flatten were much injured. Paul Nordhoff, aFrieslander, a man of great ingenuity, who lived at theZwittermill, made a great many experiments in order toimprove the colour, by which be was reduced to so muchpoverty that he was at length forced to abandon that place,where he had been employed for ten years in the colour-manufactory. He retired to Annaberg, established therein 1649, by the assistance of a merchant at Leipsic, acolour-manufactory, of which he was appointed the director;and by these means rendered the Annaberg cobalt of utility.The consumption of this article, however, mnst have de-creased in the course of time; for in the year 1659, whenthere were mills of the same kind at more of the towns inthe neighbourhood of mines, he had on hand above 8000quintals.”— Lehmann.
Christian Melzer, in Berglaxiftige Beschreibung der SladtSchneeberg, 1684, 4to. p. 405, informs his readers, thatthe mines of Schneeberg, which were first discoveredin the middle of the fifteenth century, had so much de-clined towards the middle of the sixteenth century, that itwas impossible to get any profit by them till about 1550, whena greater advantage arose from the new method of usingcobalt ; about which period a contract was entered intowith the Dutch , w-ho agreed to take the roasted cobalt ata certain price. Lehmann, who does not adduce any proofsfor his assertion, where he says, a manufactory for blueglass was erected by Sebastian Preussler, between Plattenand Eybenstock, so early as 1571. Rossler, 13 who diedin 1673, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, gives us tounderstand that a century and a half before his time, cobaltwas procured and sold as zaffer; but that the colour-millsin that country had been established only about sixty years.It is probable roasted cobalt, to which sand was added toconceal its nature, and render the further preparation of itmore difficult, was acquired by the Dutch as early as thecommencement of the sixteenth century; and these people,by melting it anew, or perhaps, pounding it finer, derivedgreat benefit from it long before the Saxons themselvesconstructed machinery for reducing it to powder, according