a blackish mineral substance, staining the hands, full of long, thinning, needle-like striae, hard, brittle, and considerably heavy. It is found in different parts of Europe, as Bohemia, Saxony, Transylvania, Hungary, France, and England; commonly in mines by itself, intermixed with earth and stony matters. Sometimes it is blended with the richer ores of silver, and renders the extraction of that metal difficult by volatilizing a part of the silver, or, in the language of the miners, robbing the ore. See METALLURGY, for the different operations.

Antimony is the fibium of the ancients; by the Greeks called ἀγαθή. The reason of its modern denomination, antimony, is usually referred to Basil Valentine a German monk; who, as the tradition relates, having thrown some of it to the hogs, observed, that after purging them violently, they immediately grew fat upon it. This made him think, that by giving his fellow monks a like dose, they would be the better for it. The experiment, however, succeeded so ill, that they all died of it: and the medicine thenceforward was called antimony, q. d. anti-monk.

Uses. Antimony at first was of service only in the composition of paint. Scripture describes it to us as a sort of paint, with which the women blackened their eyebrows. Jezebel, understanding that Jehu was to enter Samaria, painted her eyes with antimony; or, according to the Hebrew, "put her eyes in antimony." As large black eyes were thought the finest, they of both sexes, who were careful of their beauty, rubbed their eyes, eyelids, and round the eyes, with a needle dipped in a box of paint made of antimony, with a design of blackening them.—At this day, the women of Syria, Arabia, and Babylonia, anoint and blacken themselves about the eyes; and both men and women put black upon their eyes in the desert, to preserve them from the heat of the sun and the piercing of its rays. M. Darvieux tells us, that the Arabian women border their eyes with a black colour made of tatty, which the Arabians call rebel. They draw a line of this kind of blacking without the corner of their eyes, to make them appear larger. Isaiah, in his enumeration of the several ornaments belonging to the daughters of Sion, has not forgot the needles which they made use of in painting their eyes and eyelids. Nor has this practice escaped the laf of Juvenal:

Ille supercilium madida fulgine tinctum Obliqua producit acu, pingitique trementes Attollens oculos.

Ezekiel, discovering the irregularities of the Jewish nation under the idea of a debauched woman, says, Antimony, that she bathed and perfumed herself, and that she anointed her eyes with antimony. Job shows sufficiently how much antimony was in esteem, by calling one of his daughters a vessel of antimony, or a box to put paint in, cornu fibiti. The author of the book of Enoch says, that before the deluge the angel Azazel taught young women the art of painting themselves.

Tertullian and St Cyprian have declaimed very warmly against this custom of painting the eyes and eyebrows, which was much practised in Africa even by the men: Inunge oculos tuos non fibio diaboli, sed collyrio Christi, says St Cyprian. Pliny, speaking of the Roman ladies, says, that they painted their very eyes: Tantia est decoris affectatio, ut tingantur oculi quoque. Sardanapalus painted his eyes and eyebrows. Josephus reproaches the sedulous with the same, who assumed the name of zealots, and made themselves masters of the temple of Jerusalem.

The modern uses of antimony are very numerous and important. It is a common ingredient in specula or burning concaves, serving to give the composition a finer texture. It makes a part in bell metal, and renders the sound more clear. It is mingled with tin, to make it more hard, white, and founding; and with lead, in the casting of printers letters, to render them more smooth and firm. It is also a general help in the melting of metals, and especially in casting of cannon-balls. It is likewise made use of for purifying and heightening the colour of gold. See CHEMISTRY Index.

For a long time this mineral was esteemed poisonous. In 1566, its use was prohibited in France by an edict of parliament; and in 1609, one Befnier was expelled the faculty for having given it. The edict was repealed in 1650; antimony having a few years before been received into the number of purgatives. In 1668, a new edict came forth, forbidding its use by any but doctors of the faculty. It is now universally allowed, that pure antimony in its crude state has no noxious quality, and that though many of its preparations are most virulently emetic and cathartic, yet, by a slight alteration or addition, they lose their virulence, and become mild in their operation.

The virtues of antimony in the diseases of animals are greatly extolled. Pigs that have the measles are at all times recovered by it, which proves it a great purifier of the blood. Horses who have running heels that cannot be cured by the common methods used by the farriers, will generally be cured by this medicine in a little time. The manner of using it is this: Mix one drachm with every feeding of oats which the horse has in a morning. It is best put together in one place, buried under a few oats; and the horse's head being withheld a little, and then let go just against that place, he will take it all in at a mouthful. Some horses do not dislike it: others obstinately refuse it, but to these it may be easily given in balls. The virtues of this drug in fattening cattle have been thought imaginary, but experiment proves it to be a real truth. A horse that is lean and scabby, and not to be fattened by any other means, will become fat on taking a dose of antimony every morning for two months together. A boar fed on brawn, and having an ounce of antimony... mony given him every morning, will become fat a fortnight sooner than others put into the flye at the same time, and fed in the same manner, but without the antimony.