Mining and minerals of Atlantis. The man who came to Atlantis from "Spain" to study its minerals.
Atlantis was athirst for gold which lay within her soil, and also for that ruddy metal which abounds in strongest nitrates from the saline trend of earth. Of these she held rich store, and men toiled deep beneath the surface gold and dug such rare and perfect metal blocks as man hath seldom seen.
Aye, harm was done by digging deep through centuries, for by digging, inner fires were loosed, and wall of water seething through it bore beneath the waves the block of land so huge and rich it seemed the home of gods—Atlantis.
Aye, copper ye call, was buried deep, grown from a force, the sages—men of science—taught, of pressure of the world's deep crust in other age. The suction of the water ’gainst the oxide-gas formed crystals which solidified to stone in substance hard and gathered by the magnet law all other minerals held in great or less degree.
Nay, they taught that sulphur enters not the copper growth; bitumen first in making copper stands. Aye, thus they taught; a hardened slime expresses what I wish to give. I can employ no words they spake in other age. Forbear to judge of all I say today in this—thy alien tongue.
The presence of its neighbor, gold, cast a shade of color on the mass. Where gold predominates a ruddy hue is seen; where "lead," the color ye call "peacock" shows, they spake. Blue vitriol, taught
they, was an essence of the copper lode, because the overflow of salts was such in casting off when the work perfected was.
Aye, silver, too, but poor in quality, was found thereon, or in, as always when the rock commingling with the leaden pulp, made sure by oxides, in the dawn of growth-formation. Thus the Atlantians spake. Lead bears the proof within itself that all its trend towards the water-force is birthright.
Water is the first formative force of lead; water is the first of lead; a particle of soil, admixed with finest rock so worn through action of the law of molecules in given state doth form. The alum in the water is the hardening property. The iodide, the melting; bitumen in the clay in finest form, the pliable, and thus doth lead stand forth enformed by heat which melted earth's greatest bulk long ages since.
The aeons roll along and leave behind the products of their arcs and pressures, molten state as well. The period of the ice uncovered much, but more is hid where man doth dig and delve to reach.
The copper mines which held the greatest worth lay on the western shore. To East the gold on sands did lie, the grains, they called, the ocean seemingly had washed upon the beach. In that day it was a common product of that land, yet prized as now, for nations far brought products, goods, to barter for the precious metal.
Ornaments were made, some beautiful, and all were prized, for instinct seemed to recognize the purity of gold which they taught God had made of sun-rays smiting rock that held the greatest sulphide matter. Sulphide—a casting out from soil, drawn by the sun rays, and the kindred heat of inner fires.
"The trend of atoms certain forms of metal make," was their philosophy. "The heat or cold
makes texture. Heat enformed, a finer growth is there; by pressure formed, a coarser grain doth show. Pure oxide ’gainst the mass (rock) which holds strong sulphur fumes, and saline forms but crystals.
Evaporation, the first cause of rock; then stagnation followed by decomposition produced matter partaking of both saline and acid property. Acid from atmosphere, more pronounced in the beginning than later age; saline through water evaporation and planetary property brought out (which in-so-far has not been explained save by growth laws, a property needful to the sustenance of plant and also planetary life). Salt, etheric property, stimulus, electric. Next came hardening of rock formation in which entered the acid and saline-making mineral.
Bitumen may be formed by interior earth fumes, or lava fumes, admixed with the acidity in the atmosphere caused by excessive drouth. Drouth—fervid pressure of heat destroying certain properties in the atmosphere and in the rock at formative period, and bringing out others which might have been destroyed, had water-force instead of heat deployed the mass when in state of formation.
The intense, creative heat which beat upon this and other globes when directly focussed by the sun-rays which were at that period much nearer and the globes unprotected by haze or separate planes or systems of ether as now exist, cannot be described by numbers—statistics—now employed.
Such state was also a cause for mineralization; the upper and lower fires, or inside and outside forces for heat, bringing about a state which today, with reduced heat system, cannot be accomplished. Yea, bismuth was known in Atlantis, as now, in conjunction with other metals. Nor was its presence
detrimental to those other ores. It was there mined with copper and lead.
Iron they claimed was formed from slough of wooden matter first. A rustless property called simply "matter." Iron, they taught, was not formed as other metals. Iron has two methods of formation according to the "quality," spake they.
One, "the drift formation," comes from wooden property reduced through decay, and when all oxides (oxides lie in wood as in metal though in different form) were loosened and became dust property the fruit of the world-growth and the formative growth of shale substance, akin to chalk, took up the work and so commingling made a substance, lost to all analysis today.
The atmosphere they did assert had much to do with the creation of metal. The heat intense the humid character, the charring and blistering ashes made, which, when the water was infused, in age of steam, with all its saline worth and iodine and alum—all that water held—made mass of iron, ye.
Look to the fiber of the newly dug iron. It is the "ashes" heap ye view, hardened by a process Nature knows, not names. The Iodine gives color. In the seas surrounding Earth, in days primeval, waters held the thickening, stiffening quality of "tar," yet in less degree than that to commerce known. Mark ye its hardness, catching all prismatic light, the color of the iron at its best.
No theory today better fits the growth of that dark ore than the Atlantian. Mark ye also its trend in mass or mine. A "drift" ye speak, of snow or ashes blown, or sand, and iron was a drift in days gone by. Days? Aeons! Cycles! all that God doth count, but man may stand appalled and dare not think the ages in one column, for ’tis Time!
Yea, silver was there found, but not in quantities.
Thus bismuth they contended, was more pure, for silver detracted from its value and it cannot be found in quantities where silver predominates. Acidity in metal, they believed, was a test that bismuth could not be found within the radius of its growth, for acidity in metal was bismuth's foe.
That certain acid of the ore was called "glo" a casting out as metal hardens and coats the rock, nor is it found inside the mass. As medicine the use of bismuth was not known, but it was used as softening property in brittle rock when ground to make the composition slab to build, or yet for tablets raised to gods, or for the use of mariner, in stating laws in moist, hot countries under the Atlantian rule. Bismuth as a drug was best understood in Egypt when the old alchemists ruled the world of science. Learned they, too, its uses in a draught—elixir—sluggish medicine for ailments of the mad; those "moon-struck," called, for so tradition spake, that bismuth was a casting out of planets in their growth in dawn of time—Eternity's great dust which maketh worlds. Cementing, bismuth, all the molecules of light or air in one great mass.
Aye, bismuth was our subject; little more I say of what Atlantis taught of that prized substance, for they held it of priceless worth in so cementing rock that pillars grew eternal in their wearing, so to hold the thoughts of men whose bodies turned to dust for centuries had been.
Antimony was to the Atlantians an unknown metal. Tin? The knowledge of that substance, metal, was brought from far to northward in the dawn of old Atlantian knowledge, but its uses were not known as now.
Atlantian minds were bent not on that metal, yet a beaten stuff was sometimes brought for barter and later it led to knowledge of its use, for so intent
the priests on learning others’ arts that tin invested was in other metals—flux. And bronze was formed with parts of tin and iron with the copper—flux.
Bronze was formed with parts of tin and iron with the copper flux to give it gloss and substance.
Gold also was sometimes wrought in shape by pouring molten wax and tin of quality, refined into one cauldron, rolling forth the mass upon the sea sand and beating thin. Thus was the metal of the finest quality made. Tough, elastic, brittle not and could withstand the beating blasts of Time and rust not; neither was it rent by waves of sea. And barques were keeled with such—the galleys of the king.
Yea, the copper mines of "Spain" * Atlantis knew. A warring tribe took captive such a one as always sought to learn all secrets. He it was who brought the knowledge of such copper ore upon that great peninsula; and forth set men—when he had been loosed from bonds—returning. These men made search for copper, as ye call, and found, alas! a grave beside the "shafts" save one alone.
And he, content to grow in power and knowledge, there abode for "twenty years" upon the soil of alien. But at last his heart turned to his home and kind and he returned unto Atlantis, nor spake he of his intent to those adopted of his heart in "Spain."
But ere his death his early kin and sons he did foreswear to seek the spot and to enrich his early home—his country—with strange weapons, implements of household thrift, by digging, smelting and so turning into shapes the ore as times then taught.
They went—a galley of strong men who learned to toil in mines and those, returning, brought the secret to Atlantis. Men of Spain were not Atlantian
born when this occurred, but of a race from northward in that day. But later, all Atlantian was the blood infused by trader, toiler in the mines, and they who sought in commerce to maintain a rank above the "people."
"People! hated word to ears that hear the Higher Voice proclaim: My people all!"
And by those men who delved in mines in Spain, was brought the knowledge that Atlantis held great wealth in ores, and digging was begun. Yea, I spake before, the tin, ye call, was brought in boats at large to carry commerce, and its certain worth was partly understood.
The fuel used in "smelting of the ores?" It was hardened tree trunks; aloes make heat as full of fierce and melting tendency as "coal," and aloe trees abounded there. Tulip is also a fierce, hot wood when fire-smitten. Tulip trees grew upon Atlantis, huge as the trees * in this, thy land called wonders of the world by ye in this strange spot; and these great tulip trees were hewn to staves and dried in matter-soaked in slime from out the gushing wells to southward on that island.
Yea, wells of slimy wash as thou hast here, and from which ye make light in this new land. And yet those people knew no light like this ye make from the same stuff which permeated wood, caused it to yield them heat for "furnace" great, to smelt the ore dug in that land, now sunk beneath the waves, alas!
Light, askest thou? Oil of the fish gave all the light Atlantis knew in homes when darkness hid the light of day. In southern seas a monster sometimes did appear all phosphorescent, and the fishers slew such monster. In their nets it havoc made. Its pelt