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 .p194 disbelieved [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopoeia | chrysopoeia ]] transmutation into gold
 .p195 recommended breathing filters for mercury miners (finally adopted four centuries later)
 .p200 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbeam | hornbeam ]]
 .p200 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula | campanula ]]
 .p200 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolia_carniolica | henbane bell ]]
 .p200 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Antonio_Scopoli | Giovanni Antonio Scopoli ]]
 .p202 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton | James Hutton ]] 1788 erosion paper [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism | uniformitarianism ]]
 .p202 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine | scopalamine ]] motion sickness, inhibition suppression for interrogation
 .p204 [[ http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/science/text/treasure/sr-treasure-merc-t.html | Mercury Silvering ]]
 .p208 "brush-covered clamp"(?) ... damp??
 .p208 [[ Bal maiden | bal maiden ]] female Cornish miners
 .p210 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth | Thoth ]] Egyptian god of writing and wisdom
 .p211 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkahest | alkahest ]] universal solvent, mentioned by Paracelsus
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 .p213 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic | Chalcolithic ]] (copper) age
 .p214 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontonagon_Boulder | Ontonagon boulder ]] 1682 kg native copper from Michigan
 .p215 dietary copper enables [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_nervous_system_in_humans | neurodevelopment, ]] misfunction implicated in [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington's_disease | Huntington's ]] [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menkes_disease | Menkes ]] [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson's_disease | Wilson's ]] [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_disease | Parkinson's ]] [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease | Alzheimer's ]] diseases
 .p215 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipworm | shipworm ]] stopped by copper plating, subsequent galvanic corrosion stopped by replacing iron nails with copper nails
 .p216 Copper mining in Austrian Alps, [[ https://www.mindat.org/loc-45210.html | Mitterberg ]] region, 1600BC to 1300BC
 .p219 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahlore | Fahlore copper ]]
 .p221 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrat | quadrat ]] 0.5mx0.5m frame delineates standard area for counting organisms
 .p222 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus | Hermes Trismegistus ]] mythical sage
 .p223 75% of Newton's writing alchemy and occult. Keynes called him the last of the magicians

Under a Metal Sky

A Journey Through Minerals, Greed, And Wonder

  • Philip Marsden . 2024 . 549.09 MAR . Beaverton Library


Ammonite

1

1.

Ochre: An Introduction

5

2.

Tin

24

3.

Peat

41

4.

Bronze

67

5.

Silver

94

6.

Radium

127

7.

Aerolite

152

8.

Mercury

184

9.

Copper

213

10.

Gold

246

11.

Lithium: A Coda

277

Soil

283


  • p001 Introduction - Ammonite



.p024 Chapter 2 Tin

  • p025 Stanene zero resistance 2D tin surface (?)

  • p027 Beardies . bearded men?
  • p027 Wheal Jane is a disused tin mine near Baldhu and Chacewater in West Cornwall

  • p027 winze minor connection between mine levels

  • p027 drift, adit = horizontal tunnels
  • p027 stope open space after desired material removed

  • p027 Mexico Towans a sand dune

  • p028 Saint Ives Bakery

  • p030 James Forbes and Cornish tin mining - can't find 1794? 1983? citation
  • p032 casserite tin oxide mineral, SnO₂

  • p033 cow's tail line

  • p034 potholing, UK term for spelunking


  • p041 Chapter 3 Peat

  • p041 bog iron

  • p042 peat sorbent

  • p042 Bog butter

  • p043 anaerobic peat stops decay
  • p043 Lindow Man 2000 y.o. body from peat bog

  • p043 peatlands hold twice as much carbon as all the world's forests combined, release CO₂ when drained
  • p044 underground peat can burn for years. Forty billion tonnes of carbon in buried peat.
  • p048 Peat decay drops land level and damages farm soil on top
  • p057 Doggerland ~8000 BCE

  • p057 Storegga Slide huge submarine landslide west of Norway ~6200BCE, 20 meter tsunami

  • p057 By 2100, sea-level rise will approach early Holocene (about 60 meters)

    • <15m Miami, New Orleans, Boston, Seattle, Philadephia, Houston, New York

    • <30m Washington DC, San Francisco, Portland, San Jose

    • Los Angeles is 82m, Dallas 129m, Chicago 181m
  • p058 500K serfs built St. Petersburg Russia 1703 to 1712? 1762?, 30K to 100K died
  • p058 Federick the Great drained Oderbruch flood plain

  • p058 Mussolini (workers) drained the Pontine Marshes 80K hectares, 800km² coastal area southeast of Rome

  • p059 Saddam Hussein drained Marsh Arab marshes

  • p064 1953 Watersnoodramp storm surge floods killed thousands


  • p067 Chapter 4 Bronze

  • p067 Bronze 9 parts copper and one part tin at 1000℃

  • p068 Oxidized bronze turns green, but does not degrade like iron
  • p071 bronze hoards buried, speculations about "seeding" bronze creation
  • p074 Seestern barge on the Rhine, carrying 800 tonnes of building steel

  • p078 Nebra Sky Disk, Pleiades and Moon represent planting time (?)

  • p078 outer 82 degree bands signified solstice angles? no, that is ±23 degrees
  • p079 sun-ship?

  • p080 Bronze Age: the wheel, writing, legal codes, and civil administration
  • p080 domestic chicken Gallus gallus domesticus originated in China 8000 years ago

    • hens lay 500-600 eggs in a lifetime, some breeds 800, all time record 1444 eggs. Culled after 12 to 18 months as production declines
  • p081 normal marine convention is passing port (left) side to port side; upper Rhine upstream traffic passes on inner bend
  • p082 Onedin Line BBC TV 1971-80 about 1880-86 Liverpool shipping company

  • p082 Prewar Seestern was barge pushed by tugboats

  • p084 320 MW gas fired Hermann Wenzel Power Station near Duisberg

  • p084 50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel annual production, mostly for concrete
  • p092 803m Mittelberg mountain in Thuringia

  • p092 Mittelberg sky disk


  • p094 Chapter 5 Silver

  • p094 Athen's golden age supported by Laurium silver mines on the Attica penninsula

  • p094 1545 discovery of Potosi silver 60,000 tonnes extracted, estimated 50,000 tonnes remaining

  • p104 Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem 1661-1751

  • p106 Kunstgraben water channels fed water wheels from sources kilometers away

  • p107 silver co-precipitates with lead; silver mining caused lead poisoning of miners and cattle
  • p108 native beach and oak forests cut, replaced with monoculture spruce, Große Wurmtrocknis infestation of bark beetles destroyed 30,000 hectares of forest in 1800
  • p110 mechanical models: Susan Stewart 1984 On Longing PSU 4th P302.S692

  • p111 trees "spillikined against the sides" verb?
  • p112 greywacke hard dark clay-fine sandstone

  • p112 hornfels hardened metamorphic rock

  • p113 Goethe 1749-1832 devoted to nature and geology, driven by connection, huge rock collection

  • p117 The Brocken 1141 meter mountain in the Harz mountain range (Larch Mountain is 1055 meters)

  • p124 Goethe neologism Veloziferische fast devilish modern life


  • p127 Chapter 6 Radium

  • p128 Marie Curie radium 3e6 more radioactive than uranium

  • p129 radium killed flour grubs instantly, except for one that lived three times longer
  • p130 Radithor manufactured 400,000 bottles between 1918 and 1930

  • p131 Eben Byers drank 1,400 bottles

  • p132 Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia age 66, her notebooks are dangerous to work with

  • p141 Jáchymov radon spa, uranium mines, Soviet prisoner miners, now mostly unoccupied.

  • p141 Cornwall St. Ives Wheal Trenwith mine full of pitchblende? South Terras mine

  • p149 Nazi occupation of Jáchymov did not lead to uranium bomb; scientists fled, or banished because they were Jews



  • p184 Chapter 8 Mercury

  • p189 Ljubljana Slovenia

  • p189 Idrija Slovenia

  • p193 Paracelsus

  • p194 "A doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. We must seek for ourselves, travel through the countries, and experience much, and when we have experienced all sorts of things. we must hold fast that which is good."

  • p194 disbelieved chrysopoeia transmutation into gold

  • p195 recommended breathing filters for mercury miners (finally adopted four centuries later)
  • p200 hornbeam

  • p200 campanula

  • p200 henbane bell

  • p200 Giovanni Antonio Scopoli

  • p202 James Hutton 1788 erosion paper uniformitarianism

  • p202 scopalamine motion sickness, inhibition suppression for interrogation

  • p204 Mercury Silvering

  • p208 "brush-covered clamp"(?) ... damp??
  • p208 bal maiden female Cornish miners

  • p210 Thoth Egyptian god of writing and wisdom

  • p211 alkahest universal solvent, mentioned by Paracelsus



  • p246 Chapter 10 Gold

  • p246

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  • p277 Chapter 11 Lithium: A Coda

  • p278

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  • p280

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  • p283 Soil

  • p283

  • p285

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  • p286

  • p287

  • p288


MetalSky (last edited 2026-05-01 23:39:43 by KeithLofstrom)