The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1875-03-05
SEVEN METALS.

In the discovery of the metals men first
asserted their mastery over nature yet the
discovery Is still progressing. Before the
fifteenth century only seven were positi yely
known. They were each held sacred among
the ancients to some ruling deity Gold
indestructible, malleable, the richest color
ing, the most precious of decorations--was
consecrated to Jupiter, or the sun, and had
already assumed the supremacy which it
has never lost. 1t was coined into the
heavy daries of Persia and the aureus of
imperial Rome. 1t was used to gid tenn
pies and statues, wrought into rich
jewelry and woven in delicate threads that
enlivened the Powered stuffs of Babylon.
Gold mines and gold-bearing streams
were found in Arabia, Syria. Greece, 1t lly
and Spain. and the pursuit of the precious
metal was carried ON with various success
by countless throngs of miners. The rich
est mines. at least in later ages, were those
of Spain and the enormous proiuctiveness
Of the Spanish soil was slowly exhausted by
the successive labors of the Carthagenians
and the Romans. SO successive was their
industry that but little gold or silver can
now be found in territory where the pre-
cious metal once lay scattered in boundless
profusion on the surface of the earth.
Silver ranked next to gold, and was nam
ed from the soft light of the moon. The
richest silver mines were those of Spain. 1t
was wrought into cups, vases, lamps; adJrn-
ed the helmets and shields of warriors and
formed the costly mi rors with which the
Roman ladies shocked the austerity of Lac
tantius or Jerome. The beautiful silver
coins of the Greek and Roman cities filed
modern collections. Five other metals
iron, copper, mercury, lead, and tin-were
employed by the ancients for various pur-
poses; they made steel by a rude process,
and brass without discovering zinc.
For many years no addition was made to
the sacred seven. Three thousand years
passed away before it was suspected that
the number could be increased-a memora-
BILE example of the slowness of human ap-
prehension. At length, in 149O, antimony
was added to the metallic family; and far
off from the period of the discovery of a
new world the chemists were about to enter
upon fresh fields of science scarcely less
boundless or inviting.
A second metI, bismuth, came in almost
with the Reformation. Zinc, perhaps the
most important of the new family. may
have preceded the others; it was certainly
described long before. 1t is, indeed, quite
curious to notice how the bright metal had
been const unity forcing itself upon the at
| tention of careful Observers, and had vet
the ancients, in the form of an earth, to
| color copper into brass and give it a shining
| surface Ike gold, was seen dropping from
| the furnaces of the Middle Ages, or melted
in rich flakes from their walls.
Two magicians or philosophers at last de-
| tected the error of ages; and Aibertus Mag
nus and Paracelsus probably both discover
| ed that zinc was indestructiple and as
free from foreign substances as gold. 1t
| seemed pure element. Paracelsus who
was fond of pen. trating to the source of
| things, admits that he could not tell how
| the bright metal grew nor in the height of
| their magic renown was it ever foreseen
that the rare substance the sorcerer-s had
| discovered would one day she'd knowledge
| III oouss ueS VI iire, from LONDON 10 Japan.
Two centuries followed, during which no
metallic substance was discovered Para
celsius found no successor; Albertus, almost
the first man of science in Europe, was re-
membered only a sorcerer. 1t was not
until 1873 that the vast field of met die
discovery began to open upon man. Two
valuable and well-known metals-platinum
and nickel-among several others, first ap-
peared about the middle of the eighteenth
century. The number Of the metals now
rapidly enlarged; galvanism lent its aid to
dissolve the hardest earth, and at lenrth,
in the opening of the nineteenth century,
cluster of brilliant discoveries aroused the
curiosity of science.
Each eminent philosopher seemed TO pro-
duce new metals. Rerzelius discovered
three, Dayy, the Paracelsus of his age, is
the scientific parent of potassium, sod
ium, blrium, strontium, calcium The
number advanced until already more than
fifty metals, of various importance, have
been given to the parts. The new experi-
ments in light have been added, caesium
and rubidium, and no limit can now be fz-
Cd for the metallic family, which for so
many ages embraced only seven members
the emhlerls of the ruling rods