From the book
The Golden Chain of Homer
Anonymous (traditionally attributed to Anton Joseph Kirchweger) · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordTin is a white metal whose alkaline affinity qualifies an otherwise shared mineral origin.
- In the Golden ChainIt tests the distinction between a general rule and a metal’s preferred operative relation.
- TranslationThe original uses both an ordinary German metal-name and the traditional metallic sign.
- A place to readB1C23S039–040: tin beside gold, followed by the author’s qualification.
Meaning
Tin belongs among the white metals associated with aluminous matter and white arsenic in the author’s account of ore anatomy. It also appears with gold as an example of a body considered alkaline-fixed when nitrous acid alone does not perform the intended dissolution but an alkaline component assists it. The pairing concerns operative behaviour; it does not place tin in the modern chemical category of alkalis (B1C23S016; B1C23S039).
The following passage immediately softens a rigid division. Tin could also yield under the broader comparison, but is said to dissolve more willingly in alkali. This preference shows why the text must be read as a set of relative judgements rather than a perfectly exclusive table. Shared primordial matter admits different fixedness, mixtures, and response among particular metallic bodies (B1C23S040).
Use in the book
The author uses tin to expose the inadequacy of unexamined principle-names. If acid corresponds to sulphur and alkali to mercury, a reader may object that treating tin with gold as alkaline makes them mercurial when they are customarily called chiefly sulphurous. The author answers by directing attention to visible operation. The inherited mercury, sulphur, and salt vocabulary remains available, but must be interpreted according to what a subject does rather than used to overrule that behaviour (B1C23S040–042).
Tin and lead ores are said to be more fusible than iron and copper ores, with gold and silver between in the relevant comparison. This does not equate easy fusion with the highest perfection or with an identical solvent response. The chapter distinguishes wet and dry, volatile and fixed, readily and difficultly fusible portions within ore. Tin therefore illustrates how more than one scale of degree can be required to describe a mineral body (B1C23S051).
In Book Two tin can be altered naturally toward a pasty condition, and the metallic-disease catalogue assigns it contraction. The point is analogical: metals descended from one seed allegedly acquire different temperaments or defects through their matrices, and a suitable tincture is imagined to improve them. The author further distinguishes a refined malleable metal from an ore that retains sulphur, arsenic, and marcasite. Tin’s presence in these lists does not supply a demonstrated modern transmutation or justify a therapeutic use of its preparations (B2C04S008; B2C04S011–014; B2C09S012–013).
Places to read
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §16Tin is included with lead and silver among white metals.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §39Tin and gold illustrate the alkaline-fixed side of the solvent classification.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §40Tin’s stronger affinity for alkali qualifies an exclusive division.
- Book I · Ch. 23 · §51Tin and lead ores exemplify relatively ready fusion.
- Book II · Ch. 4 · §12Contraction is assigned to tin in the analogy of metallic disease.
Translation in this edition
Zinn names the metal directly; the ♃ sign stands in the corresponding position of the metallic-disease list and is translated as tin in the supplied English. In apparatus descriptions a related adjective can mean that a basin is made of tin rather than that tin is the subject under analysis. The ordinary material word therefore needs its sentence, just as the technical classifications require their local comparisons. No speculative planetary properties should be added beyond those the passage supplies (B1C10S009; B2C04S012).