I would take what is said in this book with a grain of salt. Some of the
recipes are more Alchemic than science. Check out this entry for gold:
1. Melt whatever quantity you please of lead, in a crucible, over a fire of
clear and bright live-coals. Have at the same time in fusion an equal
quantity of sulphur. Then take your first crucible, in which the lead is
melted, off from the fire; and, before the lead shall congeal, throw in the
same quantity in weight of quicksilver. Stir and mix well this with a
stick. When this is done, pour your sulphur, from the other crucible, over
the mixture of lead and quicksilver you have just made, and which
coagulates, continually stirring carefully the matter with a spatula, for
fear the sulphur should blaze and be consumed, before it is all poured in.
When the whole is come quite cold, grind it on a marble table with a mullar.
Then put all again into a crucible over the fire, and leave it in fusion
till all the sulphur is burnt out, and the matter be fluid enough to be cast
in an ingot. This will look like the regulus of melted antimony. It will
have even its brittleness.
2. Reduce this composition into powder, and, with an equal quantity in
weight of it and of silver laminas, make strata super strata of them,
alternately, in a crucible, beginning and ending always with the powder.
Then over the last bed, put about half an inch thick of Venetian glass, or
crystal, reduced into an impalpable powder. Observe however that the
crucible should not be filled so near the brim as to let the glass boil
over. Make a fire strong enough to melt both the matters and the glass, and
set them thus in fusion all together for an hour at least. Then take off,
and let cool, your regulus; in breaking your crucible, make a coppel, or
test, in which you will put lead in fusion, till it is as fluid as it can
be. Throw in your rugulus to purify it by that test, in the same manner as
silver-smiths do. When your silver shall be fallen to the bottom very pure,
put in laminas, or granulate it; then put it to dissolve in aquafortis. You
will see some small particles of fine gold precipitating from it, in the
form of black powder. Wash these in warm water, then put them in fusion, in
a crucible, and you will have true pieces of good gold, fit for any of the
chymical physics, and capable to stand any test.
Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Longmire" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: 18th century copper
> It sounds like it would make a somewhat purple alloy. The initial
ingredients are similar to niello, with the exception of the mercury.
Perhaps a sort of niello of copper? If we assume the fine pewter referred
to is a lead/tin mix, adding sulphur would make a mixture of lead and tin
sulphate. I don't know what the mercury is supposed to do, besides gas off.
Lead sulphate + tin sulphate + copper would give you a sort of leaded bronze
with a high sulphur content, no? I'd imagine it could be patinated rather
like some of the Japanese copper alloys.
>
> Noorts was a Dutch alchemist/jeweler/metalsmith, wasn't he? Seems like
I've seen the name with reference to a niello formula.
>
> >>> Dan Brower <[log in to unmask]> 11/8/2007 1:07 PM >>>
> But do you have any clue to what it is? I have looked at the proportions
and
> it does not seem to make any sense. Do you know what it was used for? I
> think decorative, but who knows. I also found a listing of "noorts of
> copper".
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Hutchison" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 4:17 PM
> Subject: Re: 18th century copper
>
>
> > Thank you Dan. That is much better than anything else I have found.
Peter
> >
>
>
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