|
48
|
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
|
||
|
|
|||
|
ally at Goslar where it occurs as dark gray, dull, subrounded masses and is called atramentum stone.
In the center of these masses pale-colored pyrite is found almost
dissolved. Usually the center of pyrite is about the size of a walnut.
Either sory or melanteria envelope these cores of pyrite and spreading through these minerals are pale green stringers of atramentum that have the appearance of hairs running out from and at the same time connecting to the minerals.16 Atramentum sutorium is produced both in nature and artificially from water and sory or melanteria or even chalci-tis. The
natural mineral forms from some kind of humor and has congealed like
ice either in viens, fractures or joints of rocks or it has come out
from the rock drop by drop and, moving down along channels, has
congealed in the form of icicles and hangs from the back of openings or
finally it may drop from the back of openings and congeal on the floor.
Irrespective of whether it hangs from the back or occurs on the floor
the Greeks call it σταλακτικός because it has congealed by dropping. There are two artificial varieties, one the Greeks call, correctly, πηκτός, the Latins, con-cretus. When
this variety is either carried from underground workings and poured
into rectangular reservoirs or conducted thence along channels it will
congeal due to the cold or the heat of the sun. The other variety the
Greeks call έφθός, the Latins, coctum or "cooked." The water containing the atramentum is placed in rectangular basins and then boiled away, as I shall explain elsewhere.
These
minerals and related varieties have been mined in Spain and many places
in Germany. They are found at Goslar, a noted locality; in the Harz
forest near the fortified city of Blancheburg six miles from
Hal-berstadt, Saxony; at Zuenicius, Breitenbrunn, in certain
underground workings of Annaberg, and above Radeberg, Misena; in
Bohemia; at Cuperberg in the Salyes district; and some about four miles
from the mine we call Zuckmantel because many travellers are there
robbed of their coats by highwaymen. Other localities are the part of
Hungary once called Dacia; Smolensk in Cepusk; near caverns at
Volterra, Italy; at Solis in Cyprus; and in Egypt and Africa. There are
five species of this mineral, melanteria, sory, misy, chalcitis and atramentum sutorium. Some species
16 Bermanus, page 464.
Naevius, "... The Veneti prefer the atramentum sutorium from Cyprus to all others and I have purchased a piece that has been partially altered to misy. I
have this specimen in my house at present and will send it to you
Bermannus at the first opportunity. If this obvious alteration occurs
in the mines of Cyprus you can easily find it in our copper mines."
Bermannus. "You will do me a great favor."
Naevius. "I am not denying that Galen wrote about atramentum sutorium. I
have many pieces of this remedy which I brought back from Cyprus and
after almost twenty years the outer portions have changed to chalcitis while the interior is atramentum sutorium. To
this day I have always taken off the outer portion which has altered
and observed at the end of each year how this transformation has
proceeded, comparing it with the alteration of chalcitis to misy."
|
|||
|
|
|||