Chemical Lexicon

Aes, does not always denote copper, but sometimes gold or silver, generated by nature itself without the mixture of another metal or stone, pure, and a metal generated by itself, from which money was formerly struck, as it is now from others separated by human art. It was first born in Galilee, but in small quantity. In our times, something similar has been seen, but rarely, and it happens that it is found only as a miracle.

Æthna is called subterranean, invisible, and sulphurous fire, which burns stones under mountains into coals very similar to jet; they are in a way full of resin and bitumen, so that some nations use them in place of wood coals, and especially blacksmiths. In some places it shows itself more at one time than another, as in the Sicilian kingdom, on that mountain which bears this very name, and also in the Neapolitan kingdom at Puteoli, not far from Naples. Once, the ancients admired the cause of such conflagration, and not being able to explain it after much investigation, they finally reached such a state of desperation that, among the most famous philosophers, physicists, and doctors, Empedocles alone threw himself into the flames of Etna to be devoured, overcome by shame rather than ignorance. Likewise, Gaius Plinius exposed himself to be suffocated by the smoke of this same fire. O insane minds of men, who, while they wish to be ignorant of nothing, experience that they have endured many labors to know nothing, except those things which bring harmful death, thinking it better not to live than not to know, which nevertheless they will not know to be transitory. Indeed, old women, from a complete kitchen, know how to enclose burning coals in a pot so that no access is open to the air through an excessive crack; in this very way the fire, which lives only through the air and in it, dies and is suffocated. If, however, before it is entirely extinguished, so that even a spark remains, a vent is made, it revives and returns to its former state. It is not otherwise with