[1472] See what is said under the article Artificial Rubies.
[1473] See the Annotations on Arist. Auscult. Mirab. p. 98.
[1474] I am of opinion that this Latin name for cobalt was first used
by Agricola.
[1475] Lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. Theophrast. De Lapid. § 97.
[1476] Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.
[1477] Bowles, Introducion à la Historia Natural y à la Geographia
Fisica de España.--Madrit, 1775 p. 399.
[1478] Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois.
Berlin, 1773, i. p. 345.--Delaval’s Experimental Inquiry into the Cause
of the Changes of Colour in Opake and Coloured Bodies. Lond. 1774, 4to,
p. 56.
[1479] Briefe aus Welschland. Prag, 1773, 8vo, p. 114, 136, 223.
[1480] Blue enameled figures of the Egyptian deities may be found in
Marbres de la Galerie de Dresde, tab. 190.
[1481] [The blue colour of the glass, of which the beautiful Portland
Vase is composed, is owing to cobalt.]
[1482] Déscription de la Chine, ii. p. 223, 230, 232. I have, however,
often heard, and even remarked myself, that the blue on the new Chinese
porcelain is not so beautiful as that on the old.
[1483] De Cæruleo Vitro in Antiquis Monumentis, in Comment. Soc.
Götting. 1779, vol. ii. p. 41.
[1484] Comment. Soc. Götting. 1781, iv. p. 20.
[1485] Briefe, p. 30.
[1486] Beytrage zu der Abhand. v. Edelsteinen. Bruns. 1778, 8vo, p. 55.
[1487] Mathesius, in his tenth Sermon, p. 501, where he speaks of the
_cadmia fossilis_, says, “Ye miners call it _kobolt_; the Germans call
the black devil, and the old devil’s whores and hags, old and black
_kobel_, which by their witchcraft do injury to people and to their
cattle.”... Whether the devil, therefore, and his hags gave this name
to cobalt, or cobalt gave its name to witches, it is a poisonous and
noxious metal. Agricola, De Animantibus Subterraneis, says, at the end,
“Dæmones, quos Germanorum alii, aut etiam Græci, vocant cobalos, quod
hominum sunt imitatores.” Bochart, in his Canaan, i. 18, p. 484, gives
a Hebrew derivation of κόβαλος. It appears to be the same as _covalus_
and _gobelinus_, the latter of which was used by Ordericus Vitalis in
the eleventh century as the name of a spirit or phantom. See Menage,
Diction. Etymol. i. 681.
[1488] Sammlung zur Sächsischen Geschichte, iv. p. 363.
[1489] Melzer’s Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg, 1684,
4to, p. 405. The same account is given in his Historia Schneebergensis,
1716, 4to. In these works one may see the dispositions made from time
to time by the electors of Saxony, to support this highly profitable
manufacture. The latest information on this subject is to be found in
Hoffmann’s Abhandlung über die Eisenhütten, Hof. 1785, 4to.
[1490] Cadmiologia, i. p. 14.
[1491] Speculum Metallurgiæ Politissimum. Dresden, 1700, fol. p. 165.
[1492] I say, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the
authority of the following information in Melzer, which seems not
to have been noticed by others:--“Peter Weidenhammer, a Franconian,
came hither poor; but by means of a colour he procured from pounded
bismuth, and of which he exported many quintals to Venice, at the rate
of twenty-five dollars per quintal, he soon acquired great riches, and
built a beautiful house in the market-place. His name is inscribed in
the lower window of the chancel of the great church, with the date
1520.” At that period a great deal of this paint was prepared at
Venice, and it may therefore be easily comprehended how Vannuccio could
be so early acquainted with zaffera.
[1493] How early manufactories for blue paint were erected beyond
the boundaries of Saxony and Bohemia I do not know, as I have found
no information on that subject. We are however told by Calvor, in
Beschreibung des Maschinenwesens am Oberharze, ii. p. 202, that a
person was engaged to superintend the blue-paint-manufactory at St.
Andreasberg in the year 1698.
[1494] Meisnische Bergchronik, p. 133, tit. 16.
[1495] Lib. v. De Subtil.
[1496] Lib. ii. cap. 55.
[1497] Magiæ Naturalis lib. vi.
[1498] De Arte Vitriaria. Amst. 1668, 12mo, lib i. cap. 12, p. 32.
[1499] Ibid. p. 327.
[1500] Glasmacherkunst. Nurnb. 1743, 4to, p. 46.
[1501] Act. Lit. et Scient. Upsal, 1733. Wallerii Syst. Min. ii. p. 164.