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Argentum, Silver

Argentum, Silver Page of 453 Argentum, Silver Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
70
ARGENTUM.
by the burning of a lamp, " lucernarum mensura"), pumped out the water without intermission by day and night in such quan­tity that it formed a river. " The exhalations from the mines were fatal to all animals, but more particularly to dogs," which shows they were troubled with the choke-damp. Some ore, called " Crudaria," was found immediately below the surface. The earlier miners used to dig no farther after they came upon alum (which mineral is here meant is not easy to explain) ; but afterwards, having discovered that copper lay beneath this, there was no limit to their search.
Polybius (xxxiv. 9) describes the silver-mines near New Carthage as of vast extent, occupying a circle of 400 stadia (40 miles), and employing 40,000 miners, who produced to the Roman treasury 25,000 drachmae per day (or 200-5/12 lbs. Troy). The ore was broken small, and sifted into water; the sediment again pounded, the operation being repeated five times ; the residuum was then melted, and, " the lead being poured off," the silver was extracted pure.
Had the Romans been aware of the mineral wealth of Silesia, they would have certainly made more vigorous efforts for the conquest of Germany; but the rich silver-mines of that pro­vince were first opened in the 10th century. In Norway also the Kongsberg mine during the last century rivalled in productiveness any of the Mexican.
Silver was never met with native, or even betraying its presence, like gold, by particles sparkling in a stony matrix: it only occurred as a reddish or ash-coloured earth. This could not be reduced unless it wore mixed either with lead or with lead-ore, called Galena (Sulphuret of Lead), usually met with in the same mines. (The chief produce of these mines at present is silver-lead ore.) By the same operation, in the smelting, part of this mineral was reduced to lead, whilst the silver floated on the top, like oil on the surface of water. Pliny (xxxiv. 47) notices the separation of the silver from the lead in the same melting at different temperatures—a property but recently taken advantage of in the extraction of silver from argentiferous lead-ore (Pattinson's Process), but evidently known to the profit of the old Spanish miners. " Lead is either produced pure naturally in
Argentum, Silver Page of 453 Argentum, Silver
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