Alum: Encyclopedia II - Alum - Pliny's writings

Alum - Pliny's writings

The word "alumen," which we translate "alum," occurs in Pliny's Natural History. In the 15th chapter of his 35th book he gives a detailed description of it. By comparing this with the account of stupteria given by Dioscorides in the 123rd chapter of his 5th book, it is obvious that the two are identical. Pliny informs us that alumen was found naturally in the earth. He calls it salsugoterrae. Different substances were distinguished by the name of "alumen"; but they were all characterized by a certain degree of astringency, and were all employed in dyeing and medicine, the light-colored alumen being useful in brilliant dyes, the dark-colored only in dyeing black or very dark colors. One species was a liquid, which was apt to be adulterated; but when pure it had the property of blackening when added to pomegranate juice. This property seems to characterize a solution of iron sulfate in water; a solution of ordinary (potash) alum would possess no such property. Pliny says that there is another kind of alum that the Greeks call schistos. It forms in white threads upon the surface of certain stones. From the name schistos, and the mode of formation, there can be little doubt that this species was the salt which forms spontaneously on certain slaty minerals, as alum slate and bituminous shale, and which consists chiefly of sulfates of iron and aluminium. Possibly in certain places the iron sulfate may have been nearly wanting, and then the salt would be white, and would answer, as Pliny says it did, for dyeing bright colors. Several other species of alumen are described by Pliny, but we are unable to make out to what minerals he alludes.

The alumen of the ancients, then, was not the same with the alum of the moderns. It was most commonly an iron sulfate, sometimes probably an aluminium sulfate, and usually a mixture of the two. But the ancients were unacquainted with our alum. They were acquainted with a crystallized iron sulfate, and distinguished it by the names of misy, sory, and chalcanthum. As alum and green vitriol were applied to a variety of substances in common, and as both are distinguished by a sweetish and astringent taste, writers, even after the discovery of alum, do not seem to have discriminated the two salts accurately from each other. In the writings of the alchemists we find the words misy, sory, chalcanthum applied to alum as well as to iron sulfate; and the name atramentum sutorium, which ought to belong, one would suppose, exclusively to green vitriol, applied indifferently to both. Various minerals are employed in the manufacture of alum, the most important being alunite or alum-stone, alum schist, bauxite and cryolite.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Pliny's writings", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki