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BOOK VIII
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173
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While
he was in the mine the attendants used it as a table and he is
reported to have said, "Emperor Fredrick is powerful and rich but
today he does not have such a table as this." I have no knowledge of
the weight of this mass but it must have weighed several hundred
pounds. Another notable mass has been taken recently from the outcrop
of a vein of the Stella and Suice mines in the Joachim valley that
weighed five hundred and eighty pounds. We see many masses taken from
the Theodore mine weighing from fifty-eight to one hundred and sixteen
pounds.
Thus
in the channels through rocks both large and small masses of native
silver are found either free of stones, marbles and rocks or adhering
to them, or in very thin sheets enclosed in these rocks. Nature also
produces native silver in a variety of shapes, sometimes arborescent,
sometimes in branching forms and even in hair-like masses. It is often
found in very white ball-like masses consisting entirely of very fine
silver threads. We find the silver in this form because it is so
stable. I shall speak of silver smelting later.
Silver
is next to gold in natural beauty. It is white in color and when
polished has an excellent luster although the natural luster is equally
pleasing. It melts in a fire and can be cast. When mixed with lead and
melted in a large shallow dish the lead is changed, in part, to molibdaena and, in part, to litharge {lithargyrori). Even
when copper and other metals are added to this mixture of lead and
silver and heated, eventually only pure silver will remain. If heated
for too long a time some of the silver is lost and hence gold is a
superior metal and is purer. The fact that silver will give a black
imark and will soil the hands is additional proof that gold is the
purer metal. Acids corrode silver, tint it blue and eventually dissolve
it entirely. Some silver is harder than gold but the softer is the best
since it is less fragile and spreads under the blows of a hammer to a
marked degree although never as much as gold. Like gold it is sometimes
drawn into a thread, either with or without wool and can be woven
although it is not as heavy. Because of its hardness it gives a sound
when struck or thrown to the ground. The same objects are made from
silver as from gold but in greater quantities, coins, rings, bracelets,
necklaces, earrings, hollow spheres, chains, and crowns. It is used for
goblets, basins, dishes, and urns. Silver articles are given to temples
by kings, for example, the great silver basin mentioned by Herodotus
that Halyattes, King of Lydia, gave to the temple of Delphi when he was
convalescing from an illness. Croesus, when the Persians were fighting
against him, gave the same temple a silver basin with a capacity of six
hundred amphorae,11 four large silver casks, hand vases and
wash basins. Silver statues have been erected to Augustus Ceasar and
there are a large number of silver statues in German churches. The
arms, helmets, breastplates, and greaves of the Parthi were of silver.
When the Carthaginians ran out of iron and
11 About three thousand four hundred and fifty gallons.
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