wood having been placed in the lower part of the furnace and kindled, the
ore is heated until all the quicksilver has risen into the operculum which is
over the pot ; it then flows from the nozzle and is caught in the earthenware
gourd-shaped vessel.
" should be taken that it does not turn to lead." There can be little doubt from Dioscorides'
statement of its turning to lead that he had seen the metal antimony, although he thought it
a species of lead. Of further interest in connection with the ancient knowledge of the metal is
the Chaldean vase made of antimony described by Berthelot {Comptes Rendus, 1887, Civ,
265). It is possible that Agricola knew the metal, although he gives no details as to desulphurizing it or for recovering the metal itself. In De Natura Fossilium (p. 181) he makes
a statement which would indicate the metal, " Stibium when melted in the crucible and
" refined has as much right to be regarded as a metal as is accorded to lead by most writers.
" If when smelted a certain portion be added to tin, a printer's alloy is made from which
" type is cast that is used by those who print books." Basil Valentine, in his " Triumphal
" Chariot of Antimony," gives a great deal that is new with regard to this metal, even if we
can accredit the work with no earlier origin than its publication—about 1600 ; it seems
