The Prosperity of Germany, Part Two

arsenic, antimony, copper, and iron that contain gold? If any gold were in them, it would have long since been extracted by others and not left for me. To satisfy him, I answer thus: Granted that metallurgists have found and explored that volatile gold is in arsenic and antimony, yet the method of extracting and separating it with profit has not become known to them, for whom the vulgar and trite separation would cost more than the gold itself, since by the vulgar operation all things are accustomed to depart and dissipate into smoke. This is to be understood regarding arsenic, orpiment, cobalt, and antimony, in which the volatile gold is conquered by the benefit of added niter, and rendered permanent and fixed once introduced into the copper.

As for the fact that gold sometimes lies hidden in copper and is left untouched within it, the cause is the scarcity of gold, not corresponding to the expenses and costs of separation and lead, which the segregation to be performed in tests and ash-vessels requires in the greatest measure. For this reason, even the gold in copper must be left, as it cannot be drawn out of it with profit.

By equal reasoning, a vein of iron very rich in gold also presents itself often, yet known and noticed by no one, since it is usually smelted by men who are mostly unskilled. To them, not being greedy for gold, only those veins are pleasing which can yield a large mass of honest and ductile iron. Indeed, if they knew that a hundred-weight of iron, such as often occurs, contained a few ounces of gold, by what manner, I ask, would they draw it out? For iron cannot be treated by separation in tests, much less does it admit, like copper, the segregation by lead, so that it is no wonder that few seek anything good in iron, since it rejects both separations familiar to copper. Yet it obeys arsenic, orpiment, or antimony more easily, and yields whatever it has when treated with them. Thus, iron of that kind, pregnant with gold, can first be cemented with arsenic, as was done above with copper; afterwards, it can be precipitated into reguli by the aid of antimony, which reguli, mixed with lead, are reduced into scoriae by salt-