From 73071.327@compuserve.com Sun Dec 31 11:11:22 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW00.12) with ESMTP id LAA13760 for ; Sun, 31 Dec 2000 11:11:21 -0800 Received: from spdmgaaf.compuserve.com (ds-img-6.compuserve.com [149.174.206.139]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id LAA04448 for ; Sun, 31 Dec 2000 11:11:20 -0800 Received: (from mailgate@localhost) by spdmgaaf.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) id OAA21308 for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 31 Dec 2000 14:11:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 14:06:56 -0500 From: Bea Hopkinson <73071.327@compuserve.com> Subject: Cato translation Sender: Bea Hopkinson <73071.327@compuserve.com> To: CLASSICS Message-ID: <200012311411_MC2-C047-20A0@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Don't know if this will work but here goes as I wish to save Sally the problem of forwarding, and thank you all for your interest. I am quite intrigued by the terminology of the physicists you have on this list as in chemistry these chemical processes use different terminology (together they should be even more understandable!) : Bea Hopkinson wrote: >Cato gives a recipe _Salem candidum sic facito_, which has been >traslated by Boyd Ash (Loeb series) as 'for bleaching salt' (which I >take to be refining). > >The literal translation seems to be "make (future imperative, used >for directions, standing orders, maxims, proverbs and laws) white >salt thus:" >It neither says nor implies anything about "bleaching."> >However, the process described is only for producing a concentrated >brine from common salt for pickling >_Ibi fiscellam cum sale populari suspendito et quassato suppletoque >identidem_ (could there be any other translation?) >"then hang a small container with popular (probably common) salt and >shake and fill up again and again. >He instructs that the neck of a clean amphora be broken off and >filled with clear water in which a basket filled with common salt is >suspended for two days during which time it is shaken and renewed >until the salt ceases to dissolve. Its saturation to be tested by >placing a small dried fish or an egg in it until they float when, he >says, the brine will be "strong enough to pickle meat or cheese, or >salted fish" >He does not say how much water the amphorae holds, or how much salt to >use. Classics List Reply: >It doesn't matter. Cato takes a practical approach, long since >recognized by generations of physical chemists: Whatever the volume >of water, if you add solid salt to it, you can dissolve only so >much. With sodium chloride this would amount to 26.6% salinity at 60 degrees F (I hadn't thought of atmospheric pressure as an added element, but then salt is usually made in the lowest places in the world!). >The amount dissolved is proportional to the volume of water at >any given temperature and atmospheric pressure and varies as well >with the chemical nature of the salt dissolved As Cato is discussing the pickling of food it would have to be high in sodium chloride and low in other mineral impurities. >- though Cato would never have understood such nuances, since the >technology of his day >would not have permitted him to know it. True he would not understand such nuances and would know mostly by trial and error, but why would he not have been permitted to know, has this something to do with the peripatetic approach to nature ? >The salt in question here is sea-salt, mostly sodium chloride with an >admixture of sodium iodide and much smaller concentrations of other >salts. I don't think Cato mentions sea salt ? And if it were, then 3.5% total dissolved solids of which 2.9% sodium chloride is sodium chloride. However, with sea salt the magnesium and potassium bromides (bittern) are the problem in preserving food. Too high a magnesium content and fish, for example, go putrid before preservation is complete. >If Cato had access to some means of measuring concentration of salt in >solution, as his spiritual physical-chemist successors have since >had, he would have discovered that the concentration of salt so >produced is consistent, given numerically by what we now call the >solubility-constant, the product of concentration of the c! ! ation >and of the anion ([Na+]X[Cl-] = Ks, in this case), no matter what >the volume of water and no matter what the quantity of salt added. But Cato did have access to a method of measuring concentration...an egg. This method long used in the prehistoric and historic salt industry...or a lotus flower in China (where their brines are very weak). Well now, the problems I am usually faced with concern variations in the mineral character of salt resources in different environments. The varying solubility of minerals and the rate at which they precipitate as the volume is reduced, thus plays an important part in the refining process. Those minerals that are less soluble than NaCl precipitate first and can be removed before salt begins to crystallize, but as NaCl precipitates in more or less the same end range as the bitterns, the salt has then to be removed as it crystallizes. If removed after it has crystallized (the solution boiled to dry) the bittern mixes with the salt. Thus the mounding of crude sea salt and leaving it for a year to drain off these impurites is a well known process. What I don't completely understand is how a purplish crust forms from these bromides. >Any salt that you add and can't dissolve precipitates out of >solution and collects at the bottom of the amphora That would only happen if the solution is fully saturated with salt, but in Cato's description he indicates they had to keep shaking to force dissolving. >and the solution maintains a fixed maximal concentration in the >presence of the precipitate. His description probably reflects that >practical observation. Am not clear on what you mean by the "presence of the precipitate'? >But as long as the maker keeps shaking and >adding salt which dissolves, the brine will finally become saturated >and you will know it is strong enough when a fish/egg floats in it. >So far so good. Agreed. >But he goes on to say you can re-crystallize this brine to obtain a >PURE salt simply by leaving the brine in the sun in a shallow pan >until it solidifies (which it does). >But there is no mention of refining or bleaching here. The >"refining" is the process described. For the alleged "bleaching," it >doesn't happen and Cato doesn't mention it - vide supra. Given that the translation could be improved. Could :salem candidum' be better translated as a 'thicker'solution of brine (denser), in other words a 'pickle'. Use of the word 'pure' by Boyd Ash is also questionable from 'Inde flo salis fiet'. In other words this flower of salt is simply the crystals that form on the surface, not necessarily pure, but with organic matter from the pickling. > >As pure salt results when this brine is recrystallized, he must have >started out with pure crystallized salt in the first place. It is true that standards of purity were not as high, however, some kinds and quantities of mineral impurites would not be acceptable because the desired effect (preservation) would not be accomplished. Adulturation was a great problem in antiquity as salt was expensive. > >The standards of purity from those days would not have been as high >as we observe today. Everything they consumed then was "organic," >meaning containing impurities characteristic of nature. They might well have been able to consume them, but they could not preserve with them. > >If this was the case, this process was not to bleach salt, but to >produce a fully concentrated brine.> >True - and to evaporate the water away to recover the salt for >preserving more food later. Man had no artifical refrigeration until >the 20th century, so preserving out-of-season food was a technical >problem, solved most often by pickling. True. > >_Ubi nubilabitur et noctu sub tecto ponito; cotidie, cum sol erit, >in sole penito_ >Suggested translation: >Where it is evaporated ["is slid away to the clouds?] and by night >under a roof placed; daily, when the sun will be, in inward sun. Charming, isn't it. Clearly night moisture might dissolve the salt again. Had this happen to me in some experiments I carried out! > >Another message mentioned removing impurities that float to the top >of the solution. That was probably such an intuitive thing to do, if >impurities every appeared in the process, that Cato may not have >felt the need to state it. I think this may refer to the 'flo-salis'. As you say Cato does not mention it. Bea Beatrice Hopkinson 73071,327@compuserve .