Note 57 — BOOK IX.[1] (continued 2)

[Pg 428][57] Agricola draws no sharp line of distinction between antimony the metal, and its sulphide. He uses the Roman term stibi or stibium (Interpretatio,—Spiesglas) throughout this book, and evidently in most cases means the sulphide, but in others, particularly in parting gold and silver, metallic antimony would be reduced out. We have been in much doubt as to the term to introduce into the text, as the English "stibnite" carries too much precision of meaning. Originally the "antimony" of trade was the sulphide. Later, with the application of that term to the metal, the sulphide was termed "grey antimony," and we have either used stibium for lack of better alternative, or adopted "grey antimony." The method described by Agricola for treating antimony sulphide is still used in the Harz, in Bohemia, and elsewhere. The stibnite is liquated out at a low heat and drips from the upper to the lower pot. The resulting purified antimony sulphide is the modern commercial "crude antimony" or "grey antimony."

Historical Note on the Metallurgy of Antimony. The Egyptologists have adopted the term "antimony" for certain cosmetics found in Egyptian tombs from a very early period. We have, however, failed to find any reliable analyses which warrant this assumption, and we believe that it is based on the knowledge that antimony was used as a base for eye ointments in Greek and Roman times, and not upon proper chemical investigation. It may be that the ideograph which is interpreted as antimony may really mean that substance, but we only protest that the chemist should have been called in long since. In St. Jerome's translation of the Bible, the cosmetic used by Jezebel (II. Kings IX, 30) and by the lady mentioned by Ezekiel (XXIII, 40), "who didst wash thyself and paintedst thine eyes" is specifically given as stibio. Our modern translation carries no hint of the composition of the cosmetic, and whether some of the Greek or Hebrew MSS. do furnish a basis for such translation we cannot say. The Hebrew term for this mineral was kohl, which subsequently passed into "alcool" and "alkohol" in other languages, and appears in the Spanish Bible in the above passage in Ezekiel as alcoholaste. The term antimonium seems to have been first used in Latin editions of Geber published in the latter part of the 15th Century. In any event, the metal is clearly mentioned by Dioscorides (1st Century), who calls it stimmi, and Pliny, who termed it stibium, and they leave no doubt that it was used as a cosmetic for painting the eyebrows and dilating the eyes. Dioscorides (V, 59) says: "The best stimmi is very brilliant and radiant. When broken it divides into layers with no part earthy or dirty; it is brittle. Some call it stimmi, others platyophthalmon (wide eyed); others larbason, others gynaekeion (feminine).... It is roasted in a ball of dough with charcoal until it becomes a cinder.... It is also roasted by putting it on live charcoal and blowing it. If it is roasted too much it becomes lead." Pliny states (XXXIII, 33 and 34): "In the same mines in which silver is found, properly speaking there is a stone froth. It is white and shining, not transparent; is called stimmi, or stibi, or alabastrum, and larbasis. There are two kinds of it, the male and the female. The most approved is the female, the male being more uneven, rougher, less heavy, not so radiant, and more gritty. The female kind is bright and friable, laminar and not globular. It is astringent and refrigerative, and its principal use is for the eyes.... It is burned in manure in a furnace, is quenched with milk, ground with rain water in a mortar, and while thus turbid it is poured into a copper vessel and purified with nitrum ... above all in roasting it care [Pg 429]should be taken that it does not turn to lead." There can be little doubt from Dioscorides' statement of its turning to lead that he had seen the metal antimony, although he thought it a species of lead. Of further interest in connection with the ancient knowledge of the metal is the Chaldean vase made of antimony described by Berthelot (Comptes Rendus, 1887, CIV, 265). It is possible that Agricola knew the metal, although he gives no details as to de-sulphurizing it or for recovering the metal itself. In De Natura Fossilium (p. 181) he makes a statement which would indicate the metal, "Stibium when melted in the crucible and refined has as much right to be regarded as a metal as is accorded to lead by most writers. If when smelted a certain portion be added to tin, a printer's alloy is made from which type is cast that is used by those who print books." Basil Valentine, in his "Triumphal Chariot of Antimony," gives a great deal that is new with regard to this metal, even if we can accredit the work with no earlier origin than its publication—about 1600; it seems [Pg 430]possible however, that it was written late in the 15th Century (see Appendix B). He describes the preparation of the metal from the crude ore, both by roasting and reduction from the oxide with argol and saltpetre, and also by fusing with metallic iron. While the first description of these methods is usually attributed to Valentine, it may be pointed out that in the Probierbüchlein (1500) as well as in Agricola the separation of silver from iron by antimony sulphide implies the same reaction, and the separation of silver and gold with antimony sulphide, often attributed to Valentine, is repeatedly set out in the Probierbüchlein and in De Re Metallica. Biringuccio (1540) has nothing of importance to say as to the treatment of antimonial ores, but mentions it as an alloy for bell-metal, which would imply the metal.