BORN (IGNATIUS) BARON VON, Counsellor in the Aulic Chamber of the Mint and Mines at Vien na; of considerable in the scientific world as a Mineralogist and Metallurgist, and a promoter of science ; was born of a family that had the rank of nobility, at Iarlsburgh in Transylvania, in 1742 ; and died in 1791. He was educated in a College of the Jesuits at Vienna, and afterwards entered into that order, but continued a member only during sixteen months. He then went through a course of study in law at Prague, and afterwards travelled into Ger Holland, and France. On his return to Prague, he engaged in the study of Mineralogy.
The mines in the dominions of the house of Austria are very important, and give livelihood to a numerous population, more particularly in Hungary, Transylvania, and the Bennet, and in Styria and Ca rinthia. Idria produces mercury ; Bohemia, tin and cobalt ; and the other metals are got in sufficient abundance, not only to supply the internal trade of the nation, but also for export, either in the form of raw metal, or manufactured into various instru ments. A revenue accrues to the public Treasury from the mines in various ways. Some, as those of Schemnitz, Cremnitz, and Idria, are wrought on ac count of government. A tenth part of the produce of all mines wrought by private adventurers goes to Government as a royalty. Government has a right of pre-emption of all metals, and an exclusive right of buying all gold and silver, the produce of the country, at a stated price. The annual quantity of gold and silver got from the mines of H ugary and Transylvania, and coined into money at the Mint, during the reign of Maria Theresa, amounted in value to about L. 300,000 Sterling. The mines in other parts of the dominions produced likewise a consider able quantity. Maria Theresa, seeing their import ance, did much for the regulation or the mines ; and, with a view of diffusing the knowledge of Mineralogy amongst the nobles, many of whom were proprietors of mines, she had lectures on that science delivered in the Universities. The administration of the re venue arising to Government from this source, is conducted by a Board composed of Managers, Over seers, Assayers, and other Officers, who are brought up in the knowledge of Metallurgy and Mineralogy, and reside at the mines. The operations of these functionaries are under the control of the Aulic Chamber of the Mint and Mines at Vienna, which keeps a set of books where all the transactions rela tive to the mines, and their situation and state, are digested and registered. An administration thus constituted offers a field of some preferment. Von Born chose to devote himself to this line of life, and was received into the department of the Mines and Mint at Prague in 1770.
About this time he met with an accident which nearly proved fatal. In the course of a mineralogi cal journey through Transylvania, he came to Felso Banya, where, the gang is rendered brittle and de tached from the rock, by exposing it to the Barnes of wood heaped up in the mine and set on fire.
Having gone into the mine soon after die combus tion had ceased, and whilst the air was hot, and charged with arsenical vapour, and returning through a shaft which was occupied by a current of this vapour, he was deprived of sensation for fifteen hours, and, after recovery, continued loug to suffer from a cough and general pain. Some time after this accident, he was affected with violent colics, which a large dose of opium removed, but left him with a numbness of the lower extremities, and lame in the right leg. In the latter part of his life he was deprived of the use of his legs. All these cala mities, which, however distressing, did not repress the activity of his mind, were considered as the conse quences of the arsenical fumes he had inhaled at Felso-Banya.
One of the chief objects of his exertion was to in troduce amalgamation in Hungary, in place of smelting and cupellation heretofore used in that country. for extracting silver from the ores. 'Pliny and Vitruvius speak of the use of mercury in col lecting small disseminated particlei of gold. On the arrival of the Spaniards in America, the Peruvians extracted the silver from the ore by smelting-fur naces, exposed to the wind on the tops of hills. The quicksilver mines of Guancabellica in Peru were discovered in 1363, and three years thereafter the Spaniards began to employ amalgamation. Alonzo Barba, an Andalusian, farther improved the process by the addition of heat. Amalgamation had been practised in Europe for collecting silver and gold when they existed in visible metallic particles, but not in the case of ores where the gold and silver are invisible, even with the aid of a microscope. Soon after its application to ores in America, an attempt was made by a Spaniard to introduce this operatics for extracting silver from the ores in. Bohemia, but 'without success. Gellert, Walerius, and Cramer, bad written against the use of Amalgamation when applied to ores. But Von Born, seeing its advantages, particularly in the saving of fire-wood, which had become scarce in many parts of Hungary, set about examining the accounts given by authors of the dif ferent processes used in Mexico and Peru ; repeated these processes experimentally, first in the small way, leaving out the ingredients that a knowledge of the chemical action of bodies showed to be unnecessary ; afterwards he had the process car ried on in the great way for several months near Schemnitz, under the inspection of Ruprecht. At this time he published his book On Amalgamation. It contains a history of Amalgamation, and extracts from different authors describing the South Ameri can methods. This occupies nearly one half of the volume. He then gives the chemical theory of ope ration in its different steps, describes the method be had adopted at Scheinnitz, and gives figures of the machinery employed.