Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

Anderson says, in his History of Commerce 35, that in the second volume of Hakluyt there is a letter which shows the use of quicksilver to have been a new invention in the year 1572. This letter I found, not in the second, but in the third and last volume of the Voyages collected by Hakluyt 36. It was written in the above year by a merchant named Henry Hawks, and contains only the following information: “A good owner of mines must have much quicksilver; and as for this charge of quicksilver, it is a new invention, which they find more profitable than to fine their ore with lead.”

Gobet, in a work entitled The Ancient Mineralogists of France, accuses Alphonso Barba of asserting that he found out amalgamation in the year 1609. To examine this charge, it will be necessary to give some account of the metallurgic works of that Spaniard, which, perhaps, may not prove unacceptable to those who are fond of metallurgy and mineralogy. Alvaro Alphonso Barba was born at Lepe, a small town in Andalusia, and officiated many years as clergyman of the church of St. Bernard, at Potosi. The first edition of this work was printed in quarto, at Madrid, in 1640, in the Spanish language, and illustrated with cuts. This book the Spaniards for a long time concealed, because they considered it as containing all their metallurgic secrets; though at that time there were much better works of the kind in Germany, and though amalgamation had been long known and practised. Edward earl of Sandwich, being ambassador to Spain, found however an opportunity of procuring a copy of it, as a great rarity; and he began a translation of it into English, but translated only the first two books. This translation was published at London in octavo, in 1674, after the earl’s death, and entitled The First Book of the Art of Metals, in which is declared the manner of their generation, and the concomitants of them. Written in Spanish by Albaro Alonso Barba, translated by the earl of Sandwich. From this English edition several German translations have been made, of which I am acquainted with the following: two at Hamburg, one printed in 1676, and the other in 1696; and two at Frankfort, one in 1726, and another in 1739. In the year 1749 a new edition appeared at Vienna. This edition, which is very different from any of the former, was translated from the French by one Godar, who was not a German, and who on that account apologises in the preface for the badness of his style. All these editions however are imperfect; for the original contains five books, as we learn from Leibnitz, who caused them to be transcribed. In the year 1751 a new translation came out at Paris, entitled Metallurgy, or the art of extracting and purifying metals, translated from the Spanish of Alphonso Barba, by M. Gosfort, with the most curious dissertations on mines and metallic operations; of this translation the celebrated abbé Lenglet de Fresnoy is said to have been the editor 37.

To judge by two of the German editions, Gobet has done Barba an injustice. In that of 1676, I find Barba expressly says he does not believe the ancients were acquainted with the art of extracting silver from pounded ore by the means of quicksilver. This certainly does not indicate that he laid claim to the invention; besides, he everywhere speaks of amalgamation as an art long used in America, but complains of the negligence with which it was practised. In a passage however in the Vienna edition, and which has probably been added by Gobet, we are told that in the year 1609, Barba attempted to fix quicksilver, and with that view bethought himself of mixing it with finely pounded silver ore; that he at first imagined, with surprise, that he had obtained a mass of silver, but that he soon perceived that the mercury was not changed into silver, but had only attracted the particles of that metal. “I was,” adds Barba, “highly pleased with my new discovery of managing ore, of extracting its contents, and of refining it; and this method I continued to practise.” I imagine that Barba was still in Europe in 1609, and made that experiment before he was acquainted with the smelting-works in America. I am however of opinion, that one will see by the original that Barba did not wish to claim the invention of amalgamation as practised in the mines of America.

Dry gilding, as it is called by some workmen, is a light method of gilding, by steeping linen rags in a solution of gold, then burning them; and with a piece of cloth dipped in salt water, rubbing the ashes over silver intended to be gilt. This method requires neither much labour nor much gold, and may be employed with advantage for carved work and ornaments. It is however not durable.

I am of opinion that this manner of gilding is a German invention, and that foreigners, at least the English, were first made acquainted with it about the end of the last century; for Robert Southwell describes it in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1698, and says that it was known to very few goldsmiths in Germany.

As mankind could not have everything that they wished for of gold, they were contented with incrusting many articles with this precious metal. For that purpose the gold was beat into plates, with which the walls of apartments, dishes, and other vessels were covered. In early ages these plates were thick, so that gilding in this manner was very expensive 38; but in process of time the expense was much lessened, because the art was discovered of making these gold plates thinner, and of laying them on with a size. Articles however ornamented in this manner were still costly, and the valuable metal was always lost. Yellow golden colours of all kinds were then tried; but these did not fully produce the required effect, as they wanted that splendour peculiar to metals, and appeared always languid and dull. It was not till modern times that artists conceived the idea of overlaying with silver, or some cheaper white metal, such things as they wished to have the appearance of gold, and then daubing them over with a yellow transparent varnish, in order to give to the white metal the colour of gold, and to the colour the splendour of metal. “When we cover our houses with gold,” says Seneca, “do we not show that we delight in deception? for we know that coarse wood is concealed under that gold 39.”

This ingenious process, which at present is employed all over Europe in gilding wooden frames, coaches, and various articles, and which was formerly used in the preparation of the now old-fashioned leather tapestry, was invented towards the end of the 17th century. Anderson, in his Historical and chronological deduction of the Origin of Commerce, says that it was introduced into England by one Evelyn in the year 1633; and quotes, in support of this assertion, The Present State of England, printed in 1683.

This invention, however, does not belong to the English, but to the Italians, and properly to the Sicilians. Antonino Cento, an artist of Palermo, found out the gold varnish, and in the year 1680 published there an account of the method of preparing it. That work I have never seen; but I found this information in a book printed at Palermo in 1704, and entitled The Inventions of the Sicilians 40. Among the few important things contained in this book, the greater part of which is compiled from old Latin writers, there is, in the additions, a receipt how to prepare the gold varnish ( vernice d’oro ). The whole account I shall transcribe, as the authors of the French Journal of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Arts, thought it worth their trouble to make it known in that work in 1778.

“Take shell-lac, and having freed it from the filth and bits of wood with which it is mixed, put it into a small linen bag, and wash it in pure water, till the water no longer becomes red; then take it from the bag and suffer it to dry. When it is perfectly dry, pound it very fine; because the finer it is pounded the more readily will it dissolve. Then take four parts of spirit of wine, and one of the lac, reduced, as before directed, to an impalpable powder, so that for every four pounds of spirit you may have one of lac: mix these together, and, having put them into an alembic, graduate the fire so that the lac may dissolve in the spirit. When dissolved, strain the whole through a strong piece of linen cloth; throw away what remains in the cloth, as of no use, and preserve the liquor in a glass bottle closely corked. This is the gold varnish which may be employed for gilding any kind of wood.