It is probable that this metal was discovered in India before anything of the European zinc had been known in that country; but we are still less acquainted with the cause of the discovery than with the method of procuring the metal. We are told that an Englishman, who, in the above century, went to India, in order to discover the process used there, returned with an account that it was obtained by distillation ver descensum.
Respecting the origin of the different names of this metal, I can offer very little. Conterfey signified formerly every kind of metal made in imitation of gold111. Frisch says it was called zink, from which was formed first zinetum, and afterwards zincum, because the furnace-calamine assumes the figure of (zinken or zacken) nails or spikes; but it is to be remarked that these names do not occur before the discovery of this metal, though ofenbruch was known long before. Fulda speaks of the Anglo-Saxon sin, zink, which he translates obryzum. Spiauter, speauter, and spialter, from which Boyle made speltrum, and also tutaneg or tuttanego, came to us from India with the commodity. Under the last-mentioned name is sometimes comprehended a mixture of tin and bismuth. Calaem is also an Indian appellation given to this metal, and has a considerable likeness to calamine; but I am of opinion with Salmasius that the latter is not derived from the former, as lapis calaminaris occurs in the thirteenth century, and calaem was first brought to us by the Portuguese from India.
[Most of the zinc works in this country are situated in the neighbourhood of Birmingham and Bristol; a few furnaces also exist in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, among the coal-pits surrounding that town; there is also one at Maestag in Glamorganshire. The ores worked at Bristol and Birmingham are principally obtained from the Mendip-hills and Flintshire; those at Sheffield from Alston Moor. The greater part however of the zinc used in this country is imported in ingots and plates from Silesia, by way of Hamburg, Antwerp, Dantzic, &c. We receive annually from 100,000 to 170,000 cwts. from Germany; of this quantity, about 80,000 cwt. are entered for home consumption, and the rest is exported for India.
From its moderate price and the ease with which it can be worked, zinc is now extensively used for making water-cisterns, baths, pipes, covering of roofs, and a great many architectural purposes. It has also of late been employed in the curious art of transferring printing, known under the name of Zincography, but owing to the ease with which this metal becomes coated with a film of oxide or carbonate, by exposure to the air, the plates cannot be preserved for any great length of time.]
CARP
So obscure is the ichthyology of the ancients, or so little care has been taken to explain it, that the question whether our carp were known to Aristotle, Pliny, and their contemporaries, cannot with any great degree of probability be determined. Besides, that subject is attended with much greater difficulties than the natural history of quadrupeds. Among four-footed animals there is a greater variety in their bodily conformation, which at any rate strikes the eye more, and can be more easily described than that of fishes, which in general are so like in shape, that an experienced systematic naturalist finds it sometimes difficult to determine the characters of the genera and species. It is not surprising therefore that the simple descriptions of the ancients, or rather the short accounts which they give us of fish, do not afford information sufficient to enable us to distinguish with accuracy the different kinds. Quadrupeds may terrify us by their ferocity, or endeavour to avoid us by shyness and craft; but it is still possible to observe their sexes, their age, and their habits, and to remark many things that are common to one or only a few species. Fishes, on the other hand, live in an element in which we cannot approach them, and which for the most part conceals them from our observation. The chase, since the earliest periods, and in modern times more than formerly, has been the employment of idle persons, who bestow upon it greater attention the fewer those objects are which can attract their curiosity or employ their minds: but fishing has almost always been the laborious occupation of poor people, who have no time to make observations, as they are obliged to follow it in order to find a subsistence; and mankind in general seldom see fish except on their tables or in collections of natural history. On this account those properties of fish by which their species could be determined, were less known. The descriptions of four-footed animals which have been handed down to us from the time of the Greek and Roman writers, give us, at any rate, some information; but from those of fishes, which are more uncommon, we can scarcely derive any; unless one were as acute or easy of belief as many collectors of petrefactions, who imagine that they can distinguish each species of fish in the impressions which they see in stones. More however might be done towards elucidating the ichthyology of the ancients than has hitherto been attempted. It would be necessary only to make a beginning by collecting the species and names which can with certainty be determined, together with the authorities, and separating them from the rest; and an abstract should be formed of what is said in the ancients respecting the unknown species, or whatever may in any measure serve to make us acquainted with them; but mere conjectures ought never to be given as proofs, nor ought the opinions of commentators, or the explanations of dictionaries to be adopted without sufficient grounds. If these are to be believed without further examination, the names cyprini and lepidoti must be considered as those of carp; and the proposed question would be soon answered: but that opinion has scarcely probability in its favour when one searches after proofs.
I shall not here lay before the reader everything completely that the ancients have said respecting the cyprini, and which is in part so corrupted by transcribers, that no certain meaning can be drawn from it. Were I to treat of the ichthyology of the ancients, it might be necessary; but as that is not the case, I shall only quote such parts of it as have been employed by Rondelet and others to prove that they were our carp. Their principal grounds seem to be, that among all the fish of the ancients no others occur which can with any probability be considered as carp. If the cyprini therefore were not carp, these must not have been named by the ancients; and that undoubtedly will not readily be admitted. It is well known what a high value the ancients, particularly the Orientals, set upon fish, of which they had a great variety; and it appears that they preferred them to all dishes prepared from four-footed animals or fowls. Fish seem to have been the choicest delicacies of voluptuaries, and in that respect they are oftener mentioned by historians than fowls. Physicians also, to whom the most sumptuous tables have in all ages been of the greatest benefit, speak of fish oftener in their writings than of dishes made of the flesh of other animals. In the ancient cookery, the number of dishes prepared from fish is indeed great in comparison of those dressed from fowls. Turdi and attagines are much praised;