Note 32 — BOOK XI. (continued 2)

This cadmia is given in the Glossary and the German translation as kobelt. A discussion of this substance is given in the note on p. 112; and it is sufficient to state here that in Agricola's time the metal cobalt was unknown, and the substances designated cadmia and cobaltum were arsenical-cobalt-zinc minerals. A metal made from "slag" from refining, together with "base" thorns, would be very impure; for the latter, according to the paragraph on concentrates a little later on, would contain the furnace accretions, and would thus be undoubtedly zincky. It is just possible that the term kobelt was used by the German smelters at this time in the sense of an epithet—"black devil" (see Note 21, p. 214).