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Chrysocolla, Carbonate of Copper

Chrysocolla, Carbonate of Copper Page of 453 Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
162
CHRYSOCOLLA.
The ancient jewellers with this mixture turned out much better work than the modern : the soldering in their fine-gold jewels cannot be detected even by breathing upon it. Castellani, that most skilful reviver of the Etruscan style of jewelry, is forced to confess that the secret of their soldering is totally unattainable. That now used—an alloy of gold, silver, and arsenic—becomes white submitted to this test. The old recipe appears to have been preserved by tradition throughout the Middle Ages, for Cellini gives the ingredients of his gold-solder as: Native Verdigris 6 parts, Salammoniac 1, Borax 1, to be ground in water, and applied to the edges requiring to be joined with a brush, before going to the fire.
Nero, as the patron of the Green Faction, in one of his fits of extravagance, caused the Circus to be strewed with the powder of this valuable mineral, instead of the ordinary sand, on the day when he figured there as a charioteer in a livery of the same dye.
Chrysocolla, Carbonate of Copper Page of 453 Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase
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