Note 10 — BOOK IX.[1]

Ferruminata. These accretions are practically always near the hearth, and would correspond to English "sows," and therefore that term has been adopted. It will be noted that, like most modern metallurgists, Agricola offers no method for treating them. Pliny (XXXIV, 37) describes a "sow," and uses the verb ferruminare (to weld or solder): "Some say that in the furnace there are certain masses of stone which become soldered together, and that the copper fuses around it, the mass not becoming liquid unless it is transferred to another furnace; it thus forms a sort of knot, as it were, of the metal."