Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXXIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF METALS., CHAP. 24. (11.)

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CHAP. 24. (11.)—THE SCORIA OF COPPER.

The scoria, too, of copper is washed in the same manner; but the action of it is less efficacious than that of copper itself. The flower, too, of copper¹ is also used in medicine; a substance which is procured by fusing copper, and then removing it into another furnace, where the repeated action of the bellows makes the metal separate into small scales, like the husks of millet, and known as "flower of copper." These scales are also separated, when the cakes of metal are plunged into water: they become red, too, like the scales of copper known as "lepis,"² by means of which the genuine flower of copper is adulterated, it being also sold under that name. This last is made by hammering nails that are forged from the cakes of metal. All these processes are principally carried on in the furnaces of Cyprus; the great difference between these substances being, that this lepis is detached from the cakes by hammering, whereas the flower falls off spontaneously.

1 "Æris flos." Ajasson makes some correct remarks upon the difference between the "scoria" and the "flower" of the metal. The former may be considered as consisting of the metal, mixed with a certain proportion of heterogeneous matter, which has been separated during the fusion of the ore, while the latter consists of the pure metal in a state of mechanical division.—B.

2 From the Greek λεπὶς, "husk," or "scale,"

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 24. (11.)—THE SCORIA OF COPPER.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 24. (11.)—THE SCORIA OF COPPER.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.