Literary Notices

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LITERARY NOTICES.

ANCIENT MINERALOGY; or, Inquiry Respecting Mineral Substances mentioned by the Ancients; with occasional Remarks on the Uses to which they were applied. by N. F. Moore, L. L. D., New York: Harper & Brothers, 1859.

In regard to mineralogy, as well as to botany, chemistry, and others branches of national science, it must be acknowledged that the ancients possessed much and various information, although they had little science according to the modern acceptation of the term. Modern enterprise has explored mines, rocks and caverns, bringing to light a profusion of minerals to undergo analysis; and their composition, as ascertained by the result, has furnished the basis for their scientific arrangement. In the writings of the ancients we look in vain for any such system. They generally contented themselves with describing individually the minerals with which they were acquainted by their external characters, obvious properties, and the uses to which they were respectively applied. They were acquainted, however, with a large number of minerals, their uses and properties, and the two ancient writers, Pliny and Theophrastus, who treat of them most at length, made attempts at their classification.

The Old Testament tells us of six metals and various precious stones. Besides these it names nine mineral substances: marble, alabaster, lime, flint, brimstone, amber, vermillion, nitre (sal soda), and salt. Bdellium, an unknown substance, bitumen, which is translated slime, and pitch, are also names. The metals are copper, iron, gold silver, time and lead. Amber would seem to have been an alloy of gold and silver, like the gold of Pactolus, one-fifth of its bulk being argutive. Its name, on account of its color, is derived from the sun. The salt was fossil, and being mixed with earthy matter, was liable to "lose its savor," and become valueless.

The diamond is supposed to have been unknown to Moses, the gem so called in the High Priest's breastplate being some other kind of stone. Mercury is mentioned by Aristotle as being fluid silver. Zinc, arsenic and antimony are mentioned in the writings of the alchemists.

Gold was found in Egypt, Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Spain and Gaul; and its uses have always been similar. A law of the twelve table provides, that whem​ employed to secure artificial teeth in place, it may be buried together with the dead. Silver also abounded in most of the countries named, and was so cheap that even the female slaves used it for mirrors.

Brass was a name applied to copper and alloys of copper with zinc and lead. The orechalcum or mountain, was smelted from cadmia, a copper ore abounding in zinc. White copper, and alloy with arsenic, was made at Herculaneum. Corinthian brass was largely furnished with silver. The ancient Etruscans were artificers in bronze, and the use of iron among the Romans was interdicted after its surrender to Porsenna, that they might be compelled to patronize the Tuscan manufacturers. This bronze was a hard and as flexible as steel, but not so brittle. The ancient method of making steel was by burying iron in the ground for years, till its feebler parts were corroded with rust, leaving the firmer of such a temper that neither shield, helmet nor bone could resist its weapons made of this metal.

Tin was obtained in Spain and Portugal, also from the Scilly Islands, whither it was probably brought from Britain. It was used to line copper vessels. Lead was obtained in Spain, Gaul and Britain, and employed for water-pipes, solder, bronze, and the refining of gold. Zinc, or false silver, was mentioned by Strabo, and was found in Troas. Twice is antimony, stibium or stimme, mentioned in the Bible, where a sulphuret is employed to paint the face and eyes. Pliny and Dioscorides describe the mode of manufacturing the paint, cautioning against burning it too much lest it should become lead. Statues were painted by the ancients with minium, and hence were called miniatures.

Among our salines, copperas, alum, sulphate of alumins, rock salt, chloride of ammodium, Spanish, chalk, are known by the ancients. Of combustibles, sulphur, bitumen, naptha, amber, gagates or jet, were all well known. The magnet was also well known, and the Chinese appear to have understood its popularity many centuries anterior to our era. The "magnetic stone" used in the manufacture of glass was probably manganese.

There were also bony stones or fossils of various kinds. But enough appears to show the ancients to have been well acquainted with the properties of a large number of minerals; and in view of their literature and works of art, it must be conceded that they possessed, as if instinctively, the perception of every thing beautiful, grand and decorous, and that if, as naturalised philosophers, they failed, it was not from a want of genius or application, but because they followed a mistaken path.—[Evg. Post.

The Atlantic Monthly¹ (Phillips, Sampson & Co. of Boston) opens with a well digested and readable article on "Thomas Paine's Scond Appearance in the United States," embodying an interesting account of the political state of our country during the latter part of the last century and the earlier years of the present. "Of Books and the Readings thereof" is a gossiping letter by "Paul Potter." "Rock, Tree and Man" is one of those philosophical and analytical articles written in the familiar way by which science is made easy now a days. "Chip Dartmouth" and "Zelma's Vow" are pleasing magazine tales, and the remaining articles are devoted to biographical reminiscences of Percival, the poet, and to discussion of the question as to whether Shakespeare was a lawyer. The "Minister's Wooing" receives several additional pages, and "The Professor" discourses about ladies' dresses, superstition and fear, interweaving a quaint love story, and winding up with a little poem on the Puritan clergyman, "Robinson, of Leyden." There is the usual variety of reviews and literary notices. The monthly issue of the Atlantic is now over forth thousand copies.

Blackwood's Magazine,² (Leonard Scott & Co. New York) devotes its opening article to the recent extraordinary growth of the French Navy, and is full of timely information. the second article is a vehement defence of Marlborough against Macaulay's terrible attack. The writer does not mince language. Here is one of his closing paragraphs:

We have been amongst those who have shared most deeply in the universal admiration due to the genius and eloquence of Lord Macaulay³. In his own department we still regard him an unrivalled. He is beyond comparison the greatest master of brilliant and unscrupulous fiction that has ever adorned the language or disgraced the literature of England. It is impossible for any Englishman—it is impossible for any honest man, to rise from a perusal of this attack upon Marlborough, and an examination of the evidence upon which it rests, without feeling of the deepest indignation.

The third article is devoted to War, speculations, and Louis Napleon,⁴ as might be expected, is the bete noir of the writer's imagination. We then have a graphic imaginary sketch entitled "The Siege of Plymouth." The New Parliament and its Work is next treated. The writer claimes a great conservative triumph in the result of the last Election, but, unfortunately for him, he wrote before the late Parliamentary division, in which the Ministry were so decidedly defeated. The closing article is on England's relations to the Continent. The writer maintains that Britain should remain a passive spectator of the strife so long as Italy is the sole field of military operations—but no longer.

NEW BOOKS.—The Boston Transcript appears to be a sort of puffing circular for the book publishers of that town. Every day or two we receive a copy of it, with a long article anticipatory of some work about tho issue, which we are requested to insert. These publishers had better wait until their volume is given to the world; and then, if they send us a copy, and we find it worth reading, we will tell the public so.

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