Note 286 — Chapter V · THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.
Reading edition
Bohn’s Trans. ii. 32–45. The learned German begins by stating that zinc was not known to the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, and then proceeds to prove that it was. The word ‘zinc’ (from zenken or zacken, nails, spikes?) first occurs in the works of the Iatro-chemist, Paracelsus, who died in a.d. 1541.