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cause it has lethal scorpions within it. At times pure gold comes from it,
with copper admixed with the metal, and sometimes both metals are distract and discrete. But the copper that comes out of it does bear a little of gold. When separated through the agency of heat and washing, each manna of the matter yields one daniq gold. But since the price of such gold does not fetch much, the process has been discontinued. This variety of copper does not have any precedence over any other kind. In antiquity, when iron was rare or unavailable in certain countries, it was copper that was employed. In the land of the Ghazzi Turks we get arrow heads used as amulets made of copper that testify to it. People put amulets made from these round the necks of children. The brass daggers and spears which have been excavated from Tabaristan are held to be holy by the Magians. Both parties hold both things to be associated with Heavenly lightning. Some people offer the following passage from the Qur'an in support thereof: "There will be sent against you both heat of fire and flash of
brass, and ye will not escape."132 In the Book of Samuel, the Prophet, are described the instruments of
war wielded by Kalyadh Falastini, that is, Goliath. All these were made of bronze: there is no mention whatsoever of iron. How strange the vicissitudes of time are that the ghatrafiyyah coins
and the silver dirhams run at the same rate of exchange, even though ghatrafiyah is a currency that has copper mixed in it. Abu Sa'id bin Dust says: I saw among the troops of al-Qabus men as if they are menstruating
or otherwise overtaken by pangs of child birth. I think that their
stars appeared to be unlucky; this is because their Dirhams are
moulded from copper.
It has been told to us about the Naw (Kazhdum) mine in Zaruban that its minerals are mixed. In case they are pure, the weight of gold, silver and copper in that order obeys a specified pattern. Their price also follows this order which is according to Nature. The weight of copper as derived from the axis of gold, which is the
standard, is 45-2/3. If burnt with vinegar or antimony or calcined in a glass crucible, it assumes a green colour. If placed in a crucible containing borax and oil, the resultant copper would be softer and cleaner than the original metal. If the gree.n rust of the metal is rubbed upon silver or tin, its surface becomes reddish. Some rusts are not artificial. It is, therefore, said that when fire erupted in the copper mines of the islands of Cyprus, verdigris was produced. Nature can produce better products from minerals than man, but this natural process cannot be imitated, contrary to what the alchemists claim. Their claim that they can make better gold than the natural gold and that mines cannot turn better gold |
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