[462] Dioscorid. lib. v. cap. 91, 92. Theophrastus De Lapidibus, edit.
Heinsii, p. 399. Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 11, 12. Oribasius, lib. xiii.
Stephani Medicæ Artis Principes, p. 453. Vitruv. lib. vii. cap. 12.
[463] Plinius: _vinacea_. Dioscorides: στέμφυλα. Theophrastus: τρύξ.
The last word has various meanings: sometimes it signifies squeezed
grapes; sometimes wine lees, &c., of which Niclas gives examples in
his Observations on Geop. lib. vi. c. 13, p. 457; but it can never
be translated by _amurca_, though that word is used by Furlanus, the
translator of Theophrastus. The old glossary says, Ἀμοργὴ, ἐστὶν δὲ
τρὺξ ἐλαιου. Oil, however, has nothing to do with verdigris.
[464] Ἰὸς σκώληξ, ærugo scolacea, or vermicularis.
[465] Should this explanation be just, we ought for _æruca_, the name
given by Vitruvius to verdigris, to read _eruca_: though the conjecture
of Marcellus Vergilius (Dioscorides, interprete Mar. Vergilio. Coloniæ,
1529, fol. p. 656), that the reading should be _ænea_ or _ærea_, is no
less probable; for by this epithet its difference from _ærugo ferri_
was frequently distinguished.
[466] [Dr. Ure states, in his Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures, that
the manufacture of verdigris at Montpelier is altogether domestic. In
most wine farm-houses there is a verdigris cellar; and its principal
operations are conducted by the females of the family. They consider
the forming the strata, and scraping off the verdigris the most
troublesome part.]
[467] [In England large quantities of verdigris are now prepared by
arranging plates of copper alternately with pieces of coarse woollen
cloth steeped in crude pyroligneous acid, which is obtained by the
destructive distillation of wood.]
[468] [Verdigris is a mixture of three compounds of acetic acid with
oxide of copper, which contain a preponderance of the base, hence basic
acetates; distilled verdigris is made by digesting verdigris, or the
mixture of basic acetates of copper, with excess of acetic acid and
crystallizing by evaporation: the acid then exists in such proportions
as to form a neutral acetate of copper.]
[469] Frisch’s Worterbuch, p. 291. In the works of George Agricola,
printed together at Basle, 1546, fol., we find in p. 473, where the
terms of art are explained, “Ærugo, Grünspan, or Spansch-grün, quod
primo ab Hispanis ad Germanos sit allata; barbari nominant viride æris.”
[470] By Conrad Zeninger, Nuremberg. In that scarce work, Josua Maaler,
Teutsche Spraach oder Dictionarium Germano-Latinum, Zurich, 1561, 4to,
ærugo is called Spangrüne.