INCE I have written of the varied work of preparing the ores, I will now write of the various
methods of smelting them. Although those who
burn, roast and calcine2 the ore, take from it something which is mixed or combined with the metals ;
and those who crush it with stamps take away much ;
and those who wash, screen and sort it, take away
still more ; yet they cannot remove all which conceals the metal from the eye and renders it crude
and unformed. Wherefore smelting is necessary, for by this means earths,
solidified juices, and stones are separated from the metals so that they
obtain their proper colour and become pure, and may be of great use to
mankind in many ways. When the ore is smelted, those things which
were mixed with the metal before it was melted are driven forth, because
the metal is perfected by fire in this manner. Since metalliferous ores
differ greatly amongst themselves, first as to the metals which they contain, then as to the quantity of the metal which is in them, and then by
the fact that some are rapidly melted by fire and others slowly, there are,
therefore, many methods of smelting. Constant practice has taught the
1The history of the fusion of ores and of metals is the history of individual processes,
and such information as we have been able to discover upon the individual methods previous
to Agricola we give on the pages where such processes are discussed. In general the records
of the beginnings of metallurgy are so nebular that, if one wishes to shirk the task, he can
adopt the explanation of William Pryce one hundred and fifty years ago : " It is very
" probable that the nature and use of Metals were not revealed to Adam in his state of
" innocence : the toil and labour necessary to procure and use those implements of the iron
" age could not be known, till they made part of the curse incurred by his fall : ' In the sweat
" ' of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; in sorrow shalt thou
" ' eat of it all the days of thy life ' (Genesis). That they were very early discovered,
" however, is manifest from the Mosaick account of Tubal Cain, who was the first instructor
" of every artificer in Brass [sic] and Iron " (Mineralogia Cormibiensis, p. 2).
It is conceivable that gold could be found in large enough pieces to have had general
use in pre-historic times, without fusion ; but copper, which was also in use, must have been
smelted, and therefore we must assume a considerable development of human knowledge on
the subject prior to any human record. Such incidental mention as exists after record
begins does not, of course, extend to the beginning of any particular branch of the art—in
fact, special arts obviously existed long before such mention, and down to the complete
survey of the state of the art by Agricola our dates are necessarily " prior to " some first
mention in literature, or " prior to " the known period of existing remains of metallurgical operations. The scant Egyptian records, the Scriptures, and the Shoo King give a little
insight prior to iooo b.c. The more extensive Greek literature of about the 5th to the 3rd
centuries b.c., together with the remains of Greek mines, furnish another datum point of view,
and the Roman and Greek writers at the beginning of the Christian era give a still larger view.
After them our next step is to the Monk Theophilus and the Alchemists, from the 12th to the
14th centuries. Finally, the awakening of learning at the end of the 15th and the beginning
of the 16th centuries, enables us for the first time to see practically all that was known. The
wealth of literature which exists subsequent to this latter time makes history thereafter a
matter of some precision, but it is not included in this undertaking. Considering the great
part that the metals have played in civilization, it is astonishing what a minute amount of
information is available on metallurgy. Either the ancient metallurgists were secretive
as to their art, or the ancient authors despised such common things, or, as is equally probable,
the very partial preservation of ancient literature, by painful transcription over a score of
centuries, served only for those works of more general interest. In any event, if all the direct
or indirect material on metallurgy prior to the 15th century were compiled, it would not fill
40 pages such as these.
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