-
The Beginning of the Story“A substance w hich it has not hi ther
to been p o ss ib le to m e l t b y f i re or b y a n y o f the
Spanish arts. ”
J U L I U S C A E S A R S C A L I G E R
Until the present cen tu ry the only form in w hich n a tu ra l
ly occurring p la t in u m was available to com m erce was tha t of
the w a te r-bo rne grains found in alluvial gravels, usually in
con junction with gold. T hese gra ins were metallic a n d
contained roughly 50 to 80 per cent of p la t inum , the re m a in
d e r consisting of the o ther m em bers of the p la t in u m
group, ru th en iu m , rhod ium , pal lad ium , osm ium and iridium
in varying am ounts , together w ith a ce r ta in a m o u n t of
iron, copper and other base metals. In bo th cases sam ples were c
o n tam in a ted w ith heavy black m ineral sands such as chrom ite
and m agnetite , from w hich it was difficult to effect com plete
separation . T h ere were also some spangles of gold a n d in the
early specimens always some globules of m ercury . T h is was the m
ater ia l which confronted the first c raftsm en a n d scientists w
ho cam e into con tac t with it an d it p resented th em with m any
difficulties. But it soon becam e evident th a t th e p resence of
the m ercu ry was due to the a t tem p ts m ad e at the p lace of
orig in to remove the gold by m eans of am algam ation . T h e
earliest a t tem p ts to w ork the metal were confined to the
selection of single gra ins an d these were th e n h a m m ered out
or so ldered together. All the early a t tem p ts to melt the m
ater ia l in bulk failed, an d m uch pat ien t research over m an y
years a t the h an d s of a succession of b rillian t scientists
was necessary before a reasonab ly m alleab le m eta l was
produced.
The Egyptian FindIt is very doubtful w he ther p la t in u m was
recognised as a sep a ra te body in the early civilisations.
Occasionally traces of it have been found am ong artifacts from
ancient Egypt, the best know n exam ple being a small strip of
native p la tinum set on the surface of a box am ong m an y
hieroglyphic inscriptions, m ade of gold on one side an d of silver
on the o ther. T h is h ad originally come from Thebes an d is da
ted to the seventh century BC In 1900 it w as subm itted by the
Keeper of E gyp tian A ntiquities in the Louvre for ex am in a tio
n by the French scientist M arcelin Berthelot, who found th a t one
of the ch a rac te rs on the side
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having hieroglyphics in silver differed considerably from the
others. His careful series of tests showed th a t it w a s alm ost
insoluble in a q u a regia — “ a very singu lar resistance to a t
ta c k ” as h e described it in the course of a p ap e r to the A
cadem ie des Sciences (1), “ su rp ass in g th a t of gold or of p
u re p la t in u m ” . He considered th a t it m ust be a c o m p
lex alloy con ta in ing several of the m etals of the p la t in u m
group. Berthelot also fo u n d no evidence th a t the E g y p tian
craftsm an h a d noticed any distinction b e tw e en this p a r t
ic u la r piece of m etal an d the silver he h a d used for the o
ther cha rac te rs . It h ad been h am m ered ou t in the same way,
an d its occurrence am ong th e o ther w as p ro b ab ly q u i te
for tu itous - it had simply been m istaken for silver.
Since B erthelo t’s time m any ex am p les of p la t in u m m
eta l inclusions in gold artifacts from ancient times have b e e n
recorded, a n d it has been estab lished tha t they occur qu ite
com m only in alluvial gold, most often as com plex osm ium - ir id
iu m -ru th en iu m -p la t in u m alloys or com pounds. T h e ir
presence a n d com position have been well reviewed by J . M . O g
d en (2).
The Classical WnitersSeveral a t tem pts have been m a d e over
th e years to show th a t references to p la t in u m can be found
in ancient G reek a n d R o m an literary works. T h e earliest of
these was a dissertation by a n I ta l ia n scholar, D o n Angelo M
a r ia Cortinovis, with th e title “ Della P la tina C o n o sc iu
ta degli A n tich i” w ri t ten in 1778 and pub lished in 1790 (3).
In this he so u g h t to prove th a t the n am e “ e le c t ru m ”
, the n a tu ra l alloy of gold an d silver m u ch used in an tiqu
ity , also referred to p la tinum .
In 1845 Professor J . S. C. Schw eigger (1779—1857) of Halle,
the inventor of the galvanometer, wrote a long p a p e r after his
re ti rem en t “ O n P la tinum , O ld a n d N e w ” (4) in which
he m a in ta in e d th a t the suggestion of Cortinovis could not
be supported , bu t th a t P liny’s d esc r ip tio n of “ p lu m b
u m a l b u m ”, w hite lead, of the same weight as gold, in the “
N a tu ra l H is to ry ” Book X X X I V , c h a p te r 47,
generally accepted as referring to tin, shou ld be in te rp re ted
as p la t inum . He w ent on further to suggest at some leng th th
a t a reference in th e G uide to Greece w ri t ten by the
traveller an d g eo g rap h e r P ausan ius in the second cen tu ry
AD to a kind of electrum “ found as a n a tu r a l p ro d u c t in
the sands of th e E ridam os (the R iver Po) which is extremely ra
re a n d va lu ab le” m ust necessarily be construed as m eaning p
la tinum . Schw eigger also d rew up o n H om er , w ho described
the costly a rm o u r of A gam em non in th e Iliad (Book X I)
being m ad e of stripes, “ twelve of shining gold an d tw e n ty of
t i n ” . H e considered th e la t te r as a poor safeguard against
the th ru s t of a spear a n d th a t they could well have been p
la tinum .
Five years la ter a French ch em is t n am ed Paravey, in a
letter to the A cadem ie des Sciences (5), aga in argued for P l in
y ’s “ p lu m b u m a lb u m ” , found in the gold m ines of
Lusitan ia and Calicia i n Spain, being p la t inum . Following up
this them e m any years afterwards a S p an ish physicist, Pina de
R ubies (6) aga in
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advanced the view tha t p la t in u m was in fact the “ p lu m b
u m a l b u m ” of Pliny and tha t it h ad been discovered in Spain
before the first cen tu ry AD.
A more recent suggestion th a t P liny’s “ a d a m a s ” ,
described in his Book X X X V II , C h ap te r 15, was in fact p la
t in u m has b een m ad e by O g d e n (2) and has a little m ore
feasibility. T h e q u o ta t io n reads in t r a n s la t io n
:
“Adamas was the name given to the knot of gold found very
occasionally in mines in association with gold. . . . The hardness
of adamas is indescribable, and so too that property whereby it
conquers fire.” (7)
But the last w ord on this ra th e r dubious a rg u m en t ab o
u t the knowledge of p la tinum in an tiqu ity is p robab ly th a t
of Professor J . F. H ealy who writes in the chap te r on native m
etals in his recent s tudy of the su b je c t :
“The second group, platinum, iridium and osmium, plays no part
in Greek or Roman mining or metallurgy. ” (8)
Early European LiteratureIt is significant th a t there is no
reference w hatever in the nu m ero u s books on metallurgy,
assaying a n d chem istry w rit ten by know ledgable an d
experienced observers th a t b eg an to ap p e a r in E urope in
the six teenth cen tury w hen the invention of prin ting h a d m ad
e these possible. T h e well know n works of Biringuccio, Agricola,
Ercker, G lauber, Kunckel, a n d Libavius, for example, show no
trace of any th ing th a t m ight be identified as p la t in u m .
T h e only possible reference is con ta ined in the volum inous
works of a B ohem ian priest and historian, Bohuslav Balbinus
(1621—1688), w ho referred briefly in his “ M iscellanea H is to r
ica R egni B o h em ia ,” pub lished in P rag u e in 1679 (9),
to
“Aurum album (argentum esse jurares, nisi pondus et quaedam
tamen fulvedo per metallum fusa aliud svaderent) album aurum,
inquam, in montibus effosum, vidi non semel.” (“White gold (which
one would swear to be silver except that its weight and a certain
yellowish tinge pervading the metal persuaded otherwise), white
gold, I say, which is dug out of the mountains, I have seen more
than once. ” )
This passage was referred to by M ichael B ernhard Valentini
(1657—1729), a physician an d scientist of Giessen in G erm any , w
ho was elected to the Royal Society in 1717. In his “ H istoria L
iteraria A cadem ie N a tu ra e C u r io so ru m ” published in
1708 he considerably amplified the brief s ta tem en t m ad e by B
a lb inus:
“ Who would have believed that white gold deprived of all its
colour had been discovered, but the authority for this is the most
honourable in reputation the Jesuit Father Balbinus who states that
one would swear it was silver if it was not for the familiar
properties found in gold such as its weight, ductility, resistance
to fire and to nitric acid and its solubility in aqua regia. ”
(10)
A letter abou t a spec im en of white gold from the A rch D uke
F e rd in an d of Bohemia, w rit ten in 1560 to the M as te r of
the M in t in Prague, is quo ted by C ount K aspa r M aria
Sternberg (1761-1838) in his tw o-volum e work o n the
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EXE R C I T A T I O L X X X V I I I .
Qua: adMetalla.
M E t a i l v m , inquis,eft quod Iiquefcere poteft : & cu
re- dir,durum maner.Oblitocibi magni lllius uicari; metai-
lorumhicc exciderunt. Aurum merallorum rex eft : Argentum uiuum ty
rannus.Quod ex tua definitione metallum non erit. Eft autem
tyrannus, quia cactera omnia abfiimir. Plinius in uiceiìmo nono ira
icribit: Auroliqueicenriii Gallina? carnes ad- miiceantur,abillis
rapi.Itaqueauri uenenum eiìe.Quòd C i uerum eft :
fanèficpricièntius atque commodius adipiicemur aurum e- (culcntum,
quàm ex tua inani indicanone, aurum potabile . Prse- rcrea (cito,in
Funduribus,quitraiiVus eft inter Mexicum,&: Da- nem
,fodinasefleorichalci:quòdnuiloigm ,nullis Hiipanicis ar-
tibushaétenus liqueicere poruit. Adhacc non omnibus metallis
uerbum,liqueicere,uidemus conuenire.
T h e passage from Scaligers' c o m m e n ta ry deal ing with
the n a tu re of metals and rebutt ing C a rd a n ’s assertion,
concluding that t h e r e are mines in South A m erica lhat contain
a “ substance tha t it has not hitherto been possible to m el t by
fire or by any of the Spanish a r ts”
history of m in ing in Bohemia, p u b l ish ed in the last years
of his life (11). He suggests tha t the rem arks of B a lb inus m
igh t have referred to this specimen, b u t says th a t gold was
never found in t h e m o u n ta in s of Bohemia.
Rumours from the New W orldW hile therefore very little can rea
l ly be sa id of p la t in u m in the O ld W orld it seems tha t
rum ours from the N e w began to reach E u ro p e du ring the
sixteenth cen tury . T h e earliest known reference having some
solid founda tion occurs in the writings of Ju l iu s C aesa r
Scaliger or Della Scala, a well know n Ita lian scholar and poet.
In 1551 the I ta l ia n m a th em a tic ian and ph ilosopher H
ieronim o C a rd a n h ad published his great w ork “ D e Subtili
ta te R e r u m ” , com bin ing the soundest physical knowledge of
h is time with some advanced speculation. His con tem porary
Scaliger then h ad th e h ighest scientific a n d literary rep u ta
t io n of any m an in Europe an d had w r i t t e n a n u m b e r
of com m entar ies , including one on C a r d a n ’s work. This,
his “ E x e rc i ta t io n e s” on the “ De S u b ti l i ta te” ,
was published in Paris in 1557 a n d show s b o th an encyclopedic
knowledge an d a vigorous polemical style (12).
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It is in C h ap te r 88 th a t the historic reference to p la t
in u m is to be found. C a rd a n had defined a m etal as “ a
substance th a t can be m elted and which hardens on coo ling” , a
n d Scaliger was at pains to fault h im as far as he could, first
by reference to m ercury an d then by citing the u n m eltab le m
etal - undoubted ly p la t in u m - of w hich he h ad h ea rd from
Sou th Am erica. T he passage is i l lustra ted here an d the
essential par ts , the first a n d last sentences, read in
translation:
“ M etal you say is som ething that can be m elted but w hen it
cools rem ains hard. . . . Moreover, I know that in H onduras, a
district betw een M exico and Darien, there are m ines containing a
substance which it has not hitherto been possible to melt by fire
or by any of the Spanish arts. T hus we see that the word m elt
cannot be applied to all m eta ls.”
T his quo ta t io n can reasonably be held to ap p ly to p la t
inum , a l though the m etal has never been found occurring n a tu
ra l ly in the areas m en tio n ed by Scaliger. It is, however, qu
ite likely th a t p la t in u m objects were transpor ted about
Spanish A m erica an d m ight well have been encoun te red in the h
an d s of people living in the coun try betw een M exico a n d the
Is th m u s of D arien. O n the other hand, there was at the t im e
of Scaliger’s w rit ing a great deal of uncerta in ty in Europe
abou t the geography of these regions.
T he next exam ple of this sort of reference from South A m
erica occurs in a chap te r on gold a n d silver in “ H is to ria N
a tu ra l y M ora l De Las In d ia s ” published in Seville in 1590
by the Jesu i t priest José de A costa (1539—1600), one of a num
ber of Spanish missionaries sent to the colonies in 1571. T h is
reads in a con tem porary trans la tion :
“Yea there is another kinde which the Indians call papas de
plata and som etim es they find pieces very fine and pure, like to
sm all round rootes, the w hich is rare in silver but usual in g o
ld .”
T h ere is a tan ta lis ing reference to this in R obert Boyle’s
“ T h e Sceptical C h y m is t” published in L ondon in 1661. After
quo ting A c o s ta ’s p a ra g ra p h he adds :
“ I m yself have seen a lump of O ar not long since digged up,
in w hose stony part there grew, alm ost like trees, divers parcels
though not of gold, yet of (what perhaps M ineralists will more
wonder at) another m etal w hich seem ed to be very pure or unmixt
with any heterogeneous substances, and were som e of them as big as
my finger, if not bigger. But upon observations of this kind,
though perhaps I could, yet I must not at present dwell any lon
ger.” (16)
A further and equally vague m ention is m ad e by Alonso B arba
, a Spanish priest who, like Acosta, spent m any years in the
Spanish Colonies. He lived in the famous silver mining district of
Potosi an d w rote his “ Arte de los M e ta le s” , published in M
ad r id in 1640, from long observation an d experience. H e refers
to :
“Chum pi, called thus on account of its grey colour is a stone
of the nature of Emery with som e Iron. It shines rather darkly;
and the treatm ent thereof is difficult, because
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S p e c im e n s of p l a t in u m alloy j e w e l l e r y f o u
n d in th e E s m e ra ld a * re g io n of E c u a d o r a n d now
in th e N a t i o n a l M u s e u m in C o p e n h a g e n . T h e
s e d a t e f ro m sev era l c e n tu r i e s b e fo re th e S p a
n i s h c o n q u e s t o f S o u th A m e r ic a
it offers resistance to heat. It is found with Black Sulphide
and Ruby-Silver in Potosi, Chocaya and other places. ” (15)The
alchemist Johann Joachim Becher (1635—1682) in his “ Physica
Sub-
terranea” published in Frankfurt in 1669 referred to the
adulteration of gold with “ smiridis hispanica”, and this was later
commented upon by William Lewis in his translation of “T h e
Chemical Works of Caspar N eum ann” published in London in 1759. In
the course of considerable additions to the original work Lewis
wrote in a footnote about P latina:
“These properties, together with the place where it is found,
and the prohibition said to be laid upon its exploitation by the
King of Spain, afford sufficient grounds to presume that the Smiris
Hispanica of the alchemists, employed for augmenting gold, was no
other than this Platina or some mineral containing it; more
especially as Becher expressly declares that this augmentation was
really an abuse; that the Gold so augmented was pale and brittle;
and that though it stood all the established tests of perfect Gold,
yet it would not bear amalgamation with quicksilver, the Mercury
retaining the Gold, and throwing out the Smiris in form of a
reddish powder. Platina mixed with Gold is thrown out in the same
manner; though it is not easy by this method to obtain a perfect
separation.” (16)This smiris may well have been a mixture of crude
platinum and magnetic
sand, but by the time that Lewis m ade these observations more
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known of the occurrence of a som ew hat unusua l m etal in the
Span ish colonies. Long before this, however, the native Ind ians
of the no rth -w estern p ar t of South A m erica h ad interested
themselves in the new m inera l an d tak en ad van tage of its
properties.
The Pre-Columbian Indians of Ecuador and ColombiaThis rem arkab
le case of the successful explo ita tion of p la t in u m in an
isolated area in the N ew W orld of the A m ericas m an y h u n d
re d s of years before their discovery cam e to light in the n ine
teen th cen tu ry after E cuador h ad gained its independence from
Spanish colonial rule. Following some years of in ternal dissension
a m ore able and energetic president, G abrie l M oreno , cam e to
pow er in 1865 a n d sought the help of a n u m b e r of Jesu it
scientists an d teachers to aid in the developm ent of his country.
A m ong them was T h e o d o r Wolf, (1841-1924) a G e rm a n
geologist engaged to report on the m inera l resources of the coun
try who rem ained to becom e Professor of Geology at Q uito . W
hile exploring the coastal region in north -w estern E cuador, in
the d ep a r tm en t of E sm era ld as and at a place called
Lagarto, W olf u n ea r th ed a n u m b e r of small worked tr
inkets of gold an d of p la t in u m th a t had ap p a ren t ly
been w ashed ou t of native buria l m ounds by tidal fluctuations.
A m ong these was a tiny ingot of p la t in u m which he analysed;
it con tained 84.95 per cent p la t inum , 4.64 p er cen t pa llad
ium , rhodium a n d iridium, 6.94 per cent of iron an d a little
over one per cen t of copper. O th e r specimens were of gold
alloys con ta in ing only m odest am o u n ts of platinum.
Wolf, whose findings were pub lished in 1879 in the last of a th
ree-volum e work describing his jou rneys (17), realised th a t the
territory of E cu ad o r had been in the possession of the Incas
for only half a cen tu ry before the arrival of the Spaniards a n d
he co n c lu d e d :
“A race that knew how to produce the alloys that I have just
enum erated can certainly not be called uncultured and in m
etallurgy at least it was not inferior to the Incas as long as we
can assum e that the old Lagarto Indians carried out this industry
for them selves and did not acquire these objects by trade. T he
presence of the platinum , pure and alloyed with gold, is a strong
argum ent in support of the first supposition, that is to say of a
native in du stry .”
An expedition to the province of E sm era ldas in E cu ad o r in
1907, led by Professor M arsha ll Saville of New York, explored a n
u m b er of large burial m ounds on the small island of La T o lita
at the m o u th of the Santiago River. H ere they excavated a large
q u an ti ty of very small pieces of jewellery, rings, pendants , m
inu te masks of filigree work, nose, ea r an d lip o rn am en ts an
d so on, some of these being m ad e in p la t in u m or of p la t
in u m an d gold com bined together. Professor Saville reported t h
a t :
“T he use of platinum is a unique feature of the section of
South Am erica extending from this province northward into the
region of the Choco River. . . . In this particular phase of
ancient art the Esm eraldas people seem to stand a lon e .”
(18)
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Paul Bergs^e 18 7 2 - 1 9 6 3
\ f t e r re ti rem ent from directing his secondary tin sm elte
r in Copenhagen Dr Paul Bergs^e em b a rk ed on a study of the many
small p lat inum objects from Ecuador that had been found during
(»aiming for a l lu \ ia l gold, l ie not only carried out analyses
of these o rn am en ts but by careful exam inat ion of pieces of
metal in various stages successfully established their m ethod of
working as an ingenious process of sintering in the p r e sence of
a liquid phase. Bergs^e was also an a c t i \e lecturer and b
roadcaster on scientific su b jects and in 1959 was presented with
the Oersted Gold Medal of the Society for Natural Sciences by the
King of Denmark
F u r th e r examples of the n a t iv e s ’ skill in fabricating
bo th gold an d p la t in u m were found on the edge of a n
artificial m o u n d on the island of L a T o l i ta in 1912 an d
were the subject of a la ter re p o r t by W illiam Curtis F arabee
(1865-1925), the d istinguished an thropologist of the U niversity
of Pennsylvania M u seu m where the collection is preserved.
(19)
H e wrote, after describing th e eno rm ous n u m b e r of o rn
am en ts of an im m ense variety of forms a n d designs found
there:
“The native Indian workers of Esm eraldas were m etallurgists of
marked ability; they were the only people who m anufactured
platinum jew ellery. In our collection will be seen objects o f
pure p latinum , objects with a platinum background set with tiny
balls of gold used to form a border, and objects with one side
platinum and the other gold .”
An Early Use of Powder MetallurgySim ilar objects found on the
co a s t of E sm era ldas , mostly at L a T o li ta were actively
studied by Dr. Paul Bergsjzre, the founder of a secondary tin sm
elter in Copenhagen , after he h ad re tired from the control of
his works in the early 1930s. Bergs0fe not only carried o u t a n u
m b e r of analyses of m an y small objects, finding p la tinum
contents rang ing from 26 to 72 per cent with small am oun ts of
irid ium and the o ther p la t in u m m eta ls , som e gold and a
little silver, bu t gave a great deal of atten tion to the likely m
e th o d of their m anufac tu re .
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S o m e of the tiny f r a g m e n t s of p l a t in u m w hich g
a \ e BergsfJe the c lue to th e m e th o d e m p lo y e d by th e
n a t iv e Ind ia ns . T hey w e re first c o a te d with go ld du
s t a n d th en h e a te d by m e a n s o f a b l o w p i p e on p
ie c e s of c h a rc o a l : th e m o l te n gold th e n se rved to
s in t e r t h e m so th a t they c o u ld b e fo rgedIM iolograpli
l»\ rourle*i\ of llie Danish
National M u-rum . ( '»iMwihagrn
The clue to his discovery he found in a number of very small
grains of platinum that were mixed with gold dust. These,
illustrated here, consisted of flat pieces weighing from 1 to 2 0
grams and were clearly in a half-finished stage of working. Bergspe
came to the conclusion that the native Indians had used a quite
sophisticated technique of powder metallurgy - sintering in the
presence of a liquid phase - a technique which he admits greatly
astonished him. He wrote a preliminary account of his findings in
1935 in a letter to Nature (20), and later published a monograph in
Copenhagen giving full details and many illustrations (21). His
collection of specimens, including the part-finished grains, is now
in the Danish National Museum. He described this technique as he
envisaged i t :
“The small grains of platinum were mixed with a little gold dust
and small portions placed upon a piece of wood charcoal; when the
gold runs it will coat the grains of platinum with gold . . . the
grains are simply ‘soldered together’. If the piece is now further
heated by means of the blowpipe, . . . a portion of the fused gold
permeates the platinum and simultaneously a little of the latter is
dissolved in the molten gold.This mixture of gold and platinum can
now withstand a light blow of the hammer, especially when hot. By
alternately forging and heating it is possible gradually to build
up a homogeneous mixture.’"
Some of the pieces of jewellery examined by Bergsoe showed
evidence of platinum cladding over gold, either on one side or on
both. Again, he considered that a small piece of the sintered
platinum alloy would have been placed on top of a bead of gold,
heated and then hammered out together with occasional annealings.
Useful reviews of this work on the Pre-Columbian metallurgy of
platinum were published by Rivet and one of his colleagues in the
1940s. (22)
More recent studies have confirmed Bergscre’s concepts and the
high degree of craftsmanship of the natives of this small area in
South America in the working of crude platinum. In a paper by D. A.
Scott and W. Bray recently published (23) the authors report on the
use of modern metallographic and analytical techniques to examine
specimens from both the National M useum of
9
“A History of Platinum and its Allied Metals”, by Donald
McDonald and Leslie B. Hunt
© 1982 Johnson Matthey
-
Two p la t inum nose o rn a ments made by the Indians of
Colombia. T hat 011 the left is in a native iron—platinum alloy
with small plat inum inclusions visible on the surfac e: on the
right is a nose ring m ade in a na tura l copper—platinum alloy
with s m a l l i n c I u s i o n s o f osm ir idium
Photograph l»\ courtesy ofI he Museo del O ro . Bogota
D enm ark a n d the M useo del O ro in Bogota, Colombia. F rom
the la t te r source two nose rings, illustra ted here, w ere show
n to consist of native iron -p la t inum alloy (left) an d of a n a
tu ra l co p p e r- i ro n -p la t in u m alloy with small
inclusions of osm iridium . Photom icrographs o f sections of some
of Bergsjare’s specimens, b o th starting m ater ia ls a n d fin
ished objects, clearly show ed the p resence of sin tering and the
dispersion of p la t in u m partic les in a gold m atrix .
U nfortunately few of the p la t in u m finds from E cu ad o r
or neighbouring C olom bia have an established archaeological
context, m ost of th em having been u n ea r th ed by treasure hun
ters a n d tom b robbers. T h e re is also evidence th a t a few
objects of p la t inum were ex por ted from the m an u fac tu r in
g region an d m ad e their way either sou thw ards along th e coast
or in land to the A n d e an highlands. T h e ir dating is
therefore difficult to establish, b u t the site a t La Tolita from
which most of the p la t in u m items in m useum s have come has
been the subject of rad io-carbon determ ina tions ra n g in g from
the first to the fourth cen turies A D while it had probab ly been
a b a n d o n e d early in the n in th cen tu ry at latest a l
though jewellery con tinued to b e m ad e in this a rea up to the
tim e of the conquest, p resum ably including objects of p la t in
u m (23). But it w as m an y h u n d re d s of years before the S p
an ish settlers in Sou th A m erica re-discovered the source of p
la tinum an d even lo nger before E u ro p ean scientists succeeded
in rendering it malleable an d useful.
10
“A History of Platinum and its Allied Metals”, by Donald
McDonald and Leslie B. Hunt
© 1982 Johnson Matthey
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References for C h ap te r 1
1 M. Berthelot, C.ompt. rend., 1901, 132, 729-734; Ann. Chim.,
1901, 23, 5—322 J. M. O gden, J . Hist. M et. Soc., 1977, 11, (2),
53-713 A. M. Cortinovis, O puscoli Scelti sulle Scienza e sulle
Arte, 1790, T om X III,
(4), 217-2424 J. S. C. Schweigger, J . Prakt. C h en , 1845, 34.
385^1205 C. de Paravey, Compt. rend., 1850, 31, 1796 P. de Rubies,
An. Soc. Española Física y Química, 1915, 420—4337 Pliny, Natural H
istory, Book X X X V II, Chap. X V , 55-60; Loeb edition, 207-2098
J. F. H ealy, M ining and M etallurgy in the Greek and R om an W
orld, London,
1978, 359 Bohuslav Balbinus, M iscellanea H istórica R egni
Bohem iae, Prague, 1679, Book I,
Chap. XIV , 4010 M . B. V alentini, H istoria Literarca S .R .I.
A cadem iae N aturae Curiosorum ,
Giessen, 1708, 1211 Graf K. Sternberg, U m risse einer G esch
ichte der B öhm ischem Bergwerke,
Prague, 1837, Vol. I, Part 2, 38-4112 J. C. Scaliger,
Exotericarum exercitationum über quintus decim us de Subtilitate
ad
H ieronym um Cardanum , Paris, 1557, 134-13513 J. de Acosta, H
istoria Natural y M oral D e Las Indias, Seville, 1590, Book 4,
Chap.
4, 201; T h e Naturall and M orall H istorie of the East and W
est Indies, Trans. E. Grim ston, London 1604, 212
14 Robert Boyle, T he Sceptical Chym ist, London, 1661, 371—373;
Everym an edition, London, 1964, 198
15 Alonso Barba, El Arte de los M etales, M adrid, 1640, Chap. X
III, 1216 W. Lewis, T h e Chem ical Works of C aspar N eum ann,
London, 1759, 4317 T. Wolf, Viajes C ientíficos por la R epública
del Ecuador, Vol III, M em oria
Sobre la Geografía y G eologia de la Provincia de Esm eraldas,
econ una Carta Geográfica, G uayaquil, 1879
18 M . H. Saville, Verhandlungen X V I Internat A m erikanisten
Kongres, V ienna, 1908, 2, 331-345
19 W. C. Farabee, Museum Journal, Univ. Pennsylvania, 1921, 12,
43—5220 P. Bergs^e, Nature, 1936, 137, (1), 2921 P. Bergs0e, T h e
M etallurgy and T echnology of G old and Platinum am ong the
Pre-Colum bian In dian s’, Ingenioervidensk. Skr. (A 44), C
openhagen, 193722 P. Rivet, Revista Inst. Etnologico Nacional,
1943—4, 1, 39—45; P. Rivet and H.
Arsandaux, Trav. et. M em . Inst. d ’Ethnologie, 1946, 39,
113—11523 D. A. Scott and W. Bray, Platinum M etals Rev., 1980, 24,
(4), 147-157
11
“A History of Platinum and its Allied Metals”, by Donald
McDonald and Leslie B. Hunt
© 1982 Johnson Matthey
-
Don A ntonio de Ulloa 1716-1795
The Spanish naval officer, a s t ro n o m er and m athem atic
ian who was a m em ber of a French expedit ion to E cuador in the
years 1736 to 1743. The journal of his voyage, published in 1718 in
Madrid and soon transla ted into other languages, contained a re
ference to the new metal platinum whic h quickly a ro u sed the
interest of scientists in Europe
“A History of Platinum and its Allied Metals”, by Donald
McDonald and Leslie B. Hunt
© 1982 Johnson Matthey
