Liquation
Encyclopedia
Liquation is a metallurgical method for separating metals from an ore
or alloy
. The material must be heated until one of the metals starts to melt and drain away from the other and can be collected. This method was largely used to remove lead
containing silver
from copper
, but it can also be used to remove antimony
minerals from ore, and refine tin
.
in the mid-15th century. Metal workers had long known that Central European copper ore was rich in silver, so it was only a matter of time until a method was discovered that could separate the two metals.
in his 1556 treatise De re metallica
, remained almost unchanged until the 19th century when it was replaced by cheaper and more efficient processes such as sulphatization and eventually electrolytic methods.
Liquation requires that the silver-rich copper first be melted with approximately three times its weight in lead, as silver has a greater affinity
with lead most of the silver would end up within this rather than the copper. If the copper is assayed and found to contain too little silver for liquation to be financial viable (around 0.31% is the minimum required ) it is melted and allowed to settle so that much of the silver sinks towards the bottom. The ‘tops’ are then drawn off and used to produce copper while the silver-rich ‘bottoms’ are used in the liquation process. The copper-lead alloy created can be tapped off and cast into large plano-convex ingots known as ‘liquation cakes’. As the metals cool and solidify the copper and the silver-containing lead separate as they are immiscible with each other.
The ratio
of lead to copper in these cakes is an important factor for the process to work efficiently. Agricola recommended 3 parts copper to 8-12 parts lead. The copper must be assayed to accurately determine how much silver it contains, for copper rich in silver the top end of this ratio was used to make sure the maximum amount of silver possible would end up within the lead. However there also needs to be enough copper to allow the cakes to keep their shape once most of the lead has drained away, too much copper and it would trap some of the lead within and the process would be very inefficient.
The size of these cakes has remained consistent from when Agricola wrote of them in 1556 to the 19th century when the process became obsolete. They were usually between 2 ½ to 3 ½ inches (6.4 to 8.9 cm) thick, about 2 feet (0.61m) in diameter and weighed from 225 to 375 lbs (102 kg to 170 kg). This consistency is not without reason as the size of the cakes is very important to the smooth running of the liquation process. If the cakes are too small, the product would not be worth the time and costs spent on the process, if they are too large then the copper would begin to melt before the maximum amount of lead has drained away.
The cakes are heated in a liquation furnace
, usually four or five at once, to a temperature
above the melting point
of lead (327°C), but below that of copper (1084°C), so that the silver-rich lead melts and flows away. As the melting point of lead is so low a high temperature furnace is not required and it can be fuelled with wood. It is important that this takes place in a reducing atmosphere, i.e.one with little oxygen
, to avoid the lead oxidising, the cakes are therefore well covered by charcoal
and little air is allowed into the furnace. It is impossible to stop some of the lead oxidising however and this drops down and forms spiky projections known as ‘liquation thorns’ in the channel underneath the hearth.
The older and relatively simple method of cupellation
can then be used to separate the silver from the lead. If the lead is assay
ed and found not to contain enough silver to make the cupellation process worthwhile it is reused in liquation cakes until it has sufficient silver.
The ‘exhausted liquation cakes’ which still contain some lead and silver are ‘dried’ in a special furnace which is heated to a higher temperature under oxidising conditions. This is essentially just another stage of liquation and most of the remaining lead is expelled and oxidised to form liquation thorns, though some remains as lead metal. The copper can then be refined to remove other impurities and produce copper metal.
Waste products can be reused to produce new liquation cakes to try and minimise loss of metals, especially silver. The waste products are mostly in the form of liquation thorns from the liquation and the drying process but there are also some slag
s produced.
, and Sankt Andreasberg
smelting
-works in the Upper Harz
between the years 1857 and 1860 25% of the silver, 25.1% of the lead and 9.3% of the copper was lost. Some of this is lost in slag that is not worth reusing, some is lost by what is termed ‘burning’, and some of the silver is lost to the refined copper. It is clear therefore that a constant supply of lead was needed to make up for that lost at various stages.
in Nuremberg
in 1453. Nuremberg was one of Germany’s main centres of metal refining and fabrication, and was a leader in metallurgical techniques. Five liquation plants soon sprang up around the city, and within 15 years had spread throughout Germany, Poland
and the Italian Alps.
This is often regarded as the beginning of liquation, but evidence suggests liquation may have existed in smaller-scale use centuries earlier. The sophisticated nature of the 15th century liquation plants with custom-made furnaces would be surprising for a new technology. There was also a far simpler but more labour intensive version of the method brought to Japan
by the Portuguese
in 1591; this is possibly the remnants of an earlier European method.
Agricola discusses various types of copper produced from the liquation process; one of these is caldarium or ‘cauldron copper’ which contains a high level of lead and was used to make medieval cauldron
s. Analysis of 13th century cauldrons shows that they are made out of copper with a low level of silver and high levels of lead which would match that produced by liquation.
Liquation may even have existed as early as the 12th century; in Theophilus’ On Divers Arts he makes a possible reference to liquation:
‘When the stone begins to soften, lead flows out through certain small cavities and copper is left inside.’
However, he was not an expert in metallurgy, so his writings may not be accurate, and though there were similar cauldrons in the 12th century, no compositional analysis has been published that supports this theory.
Against the idea that this process was used significantly before it became widespread in the mid-15th century, is the fact that it had to be done on a large-scale to be financially viable. There is no evidence of large-scale liquation before Nuremberg. Also, efficient liquation requires an extremely skilled practitioner. Anyone with that much skill is unlikely to spend much time on something unprofitable.
Some suggest liquation existed even earlier. Babylonian texts from Mari
mention that ‘mountain copper’ was ‘washed’ to produce ‘washed copper’ and that lead was used with silver to produce ‘washed silver’. Some say this shows liquation was being carried out in the Near East
as early as the second millennium BC. Crucially, however, these texts do not specifically mention lead being used with copper to produce silver, as would be expected for liquation.
economics
, described liquation as ‘even more important than the invention of the printing press
’ for the development of industry
during this period. It increased production of silver on a massive scale. Between 1460 and 1530, the output of silver increased as much as fivefold in central Europe. This had a secondary effect of lowering the costs of producing copper at a time when its demand had increased due to the needs of the brass
making industry, and the use of copper on ships and roofs. Lead production also received a boost, indeed the lack of lead available held the liquation process back until a large lead-bearing seam was discovered at Tarnowitz in Poland
.
Liquation triggered an increase in mining operations, and a new class of wealthy merchant
s clamoured to participate. Some of the wealthiest merchants in Europe invested in mining, including the French
Royal Banker Jacques Coeur and the powerful Medici
family of Florence. However, most of the funds came from merchants in neighbouring towns. For example the burghers of Nuremberg funded mines in the mountains of Bohemia
and the Harz.
Many new copper and silver mines sprang up. A mines at Joachimstal, in the Erzgebirge, was so successful that a coin called the ‘Joachimstaler
’ was created, which led to the term, dollar
. Others of note included Schneeberg
, and Annaberg
(also in the Erzgebirge), Schwaz
, in the valley of the Inn
, and at Neusohl in Hungary
. The new mining wealth allowed some of the largest mines of previous centuries to reopen, such as the silver-bearing lead and copper mines of Rammelsberg
. These old mines had previously been abandoned due to flooding, collapses, lack of technology, or simply a lack of money. Now shafts could be sunk deeper and water more efficiently drained, so miners could work seams once out of reach.
Liquation-based wealth helped build roads between mining and processing regions, and financed improvements to mining technology. Thus its influence went beyond just increasing silver and copper production. It helped revive the economy of large parts of Europe, and the mining of other metals such as iron
and mercury
.
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
or alloy
Alloy
An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...
. The material must be heated until one of the metals starts to melt and drain away from the other and can be collected. This method was largely used to remove lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
containing silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
from copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, but it can also be used to remove antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
minerals from ore, and refine tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
.
Separating copper and silver
The first known use of Liquation on a large scale was in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in the mid-15th century. Metal workers had long known that Central European copper ore was rich in silver, so it was only a matter of time until a method was discovered that could separate the two metals.
Process
The 16th century process of separating copper and silver using liquation, described by Georg AgricolaGeorg Agricola
Georgius Agricola was a German scholar and scientist. Known as "the father of mineralogy", he was born at Glauchau in Saxony. His real name was Georg Pawer; Agricola is the Latinised version of his name, Pawer meaning "farmer"...
in his 1556 treatise De re metallica
De re metallica
De re metallica is a book cataloguing the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals, published in 1556. The author was Georg Bauer, whose pen name was the Latinized Georgius Agricola...
, remained almost unchanged until the 19th century when it was replaced by cheaper and more efficient processes such as sulphatization and eventually electrolytic methods.
Liquation requires that the silver-rich copper first be melted with approximately three times its weight in lead, as silver has a greater affinity
Chemical affinity
In chemical physics and physical chemistry, chemical affinity is the electronic property by which dissimilar chemical species are capable of forming chemical compounds...
with lead most of the silver would end up within this rather than the copper. If the copper is assayed and found to contain too little silver for liquation to be financial viable (around 0.31% is the minimum required ) it is melted and allowed to settle so that much of the silver sinks towards the bottom. The ‘tops’ are then drawn off and used to produce copper while the silver-rich ‘bottoms’ are used in the liquation process. The copper-lead alloy created can be tapped off and cast into large plano-convex ingots known as ‘liquation cakes’. As the metals cool and solidify the copper and the silver-containing lead separate as they are immiscible with each other.
The ratio
Ratio
In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind , usually expressed as "a to b" or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two which explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second In mathematics, a ratio is...
of lead to copper in these cakes is an important factor for the process to work efficiently. Agricola recommended 3 parts copper to 8-12 parts lead. The copper must be assayed to accurately determine how much silver it contains, for copper rich in silver the top end of this ratio was used to make sure the maximum amount of silver possible would end up within the lead. However there also needs to be enough copper to allow the cakes to keep their shape once most of the lead has drained away, too much copper and it would trap some of the lead within and the process would be very inefficient.
The size of these cakes has remained consistent from when Agricola wrote of them in 1556 to the 19th century when the process became obsolete. They were usually between 2 ½ to 3 ½ inches (6.4 to 8.9 cm) thick, about 2 feet (0.61m) in diameter and weighed from 225 to 375 lbs (102 kg to 170 kg). This consistency is not without reason as the size of the cakes is very important to the smooth running of the liquation process. If the cakes are too small, the product would not be worth the time and costs spent on the process, if they are too large then the copper would begin to melt before the maximum amount of lead has drained away.
The cakes are heated in a liquation furnace
Furnace
A furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven.In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace , and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the...
, usually four or five at once, to a temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
above the melting point
Melting point
The melting point of a solid is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends on pressure and is usually specified at standard atmospheric pressure...
of lead (327°C), but below that of copper (1084°C), so that the silver-rich lead melts and flows away. As the melting point of lead is so low a high temperature furnace is not required and it can be fuelled with wood. It is important that this takes place in a reducing atmosphere, i.e.one with little oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
, to avoid the lead oxidising, the cakes are therefore well covered by charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
and little air is allowed into the furnace. It is impossible to stop some of the lead oxidising however and this drops down and forms spiky projections known as ‘liquation thorns’ in the channel underneath the hearth.
The older and relatively simple method of cupellation
Cupellation
Cupellation is a metallurgical process in which ores or alloyed metals are treated under high temperatures and carefully controlled operations in order to separate noble metals, like gold and silver, from base metals like lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, antimony or bismuth, that might be present in...
can then be used to separate the silver from the lead. If the lead is assay
Assay
An assay is a procedure in molecular biology for testing or measuring the activity of a drug or biochemical in an organism or organic sample. A quantitative assay may also measure the amount of a substance in a sample. Bioassays and immunoassays are among the many varieties of specialized...
ed and found not to contain enough silver to make the cupellation process worthwhile it is reused in liquation cakes until it has sufficient silver.
The ‘exhausted liquation cakes’ which still contain some lead and silver are ‘dried’ in a special furnace which is heated to a higher temperature under oxidising conditions. This is essentially just another stage of liquation and most of the remaining lead is expelled and oxidised to form liquation thorns, though some remains as lead metal. The copper can then be refined to remove other impurities and produce copper metal.
Waste products can be reused to produce new liquation cakes to try and minimise loss of metals, especially silver. The waste products are mostly in the form of liquation thorns from the liquation and the drying process but there are also some slag
Slag
Slag is a partially vitreous by-product of smelting ore to separate the metal fraction from the unwanted fraction. It can usually be considered to be a mixture of metal oxides and silicon dioxide. However, slags can contain metal sulfides and metal atoms in the elemental form...
s produced.
Loss of Metal
This process is not 100% efficient. At the Lautenthal, AltenauAltenau, Lower Saxony
Altenau is a town in the district of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany.It is situated in the middle of the Harz mountains, between Clausthal-Zellerfeld and the Brocken...
, and Sankt Andreasberg
Sankt Andreasberg
Sankt Andreasberg is a town and a former municipality in the district of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 November 2011, it is part of the town Braunlage. It is situated in the Harz, approximately 7 km west of Braunlage proper, and 20 km east of Osterode am Harz.- History :Sankt...
smelting
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
-works in the Upper Harz
Upper Harz
The Upper Harz refers to the western and higher part of the Harz mountain range in central Germany. Much of the Upper Harz is over , but at its eastern edge in the High Harz it climbs to over on the Brocken massif.- Geography :...
between the years 1857 and 1860 25% of the silver, 25.1% of the lead and 9.3% of the copper was lost. Some of this is lost in slag that is not worth reusing, some is lost by what is termed ‘burning’, and some of the silver is lost to the refined copper. It is clear therefore that a constant supply of lead was needed to make up for that lost at various stages.
First instances
Liquation is first documented in the archives of the municipal foundryFoundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
in 1453. Nuremberg was one of Germany’s main centres of metal refining and fabrication, and was a leader in metallurgical techniques. Five liquation plants soon sprang up around the city, and within 15 years had spread throughout Germany, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the Italian Alps.
This is often regarded as the beginning of liquation, but evidence suggests liquation may have existed in smaller-scale use centuries earlier. The sophisticated nature of the 15th century liquation plants with custom-made furnaces would be surprising for a new technology. There was also a far simpler but more labour intensive version of the method brought to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
by the Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
in 1591; this is possibly the remnants of an earlier European method.
Agricola discusses various types of copper produced from the liquation process; one of these is caldarium or ‘cauldron copper’ which contains a high level of lead and was used to make medieval cauldron
Cauldron
A cauldron or caldron is a large metal pot for cooking and/or boiling over an open fire, with a large mouth and frequently with an arc-shaped hanger.- Etymology :...
s. Analysis of 13th century cauldrons shows that they are made out of copper with a low level of silver and high levels of lead which would match that produced by liquation.
Liquation may even have existed as early as the 12th century; in Theophilus’ On Divers Arts he makes a possible reference to liquation:
‘When the stone begins to soften, lead flows out through certain small cavities and copper is left inside.’
However, he was not an expert in metallurgy, so his writings may not be accurate, and though there were similar cauldrons in the 12th century, no compositional analysis has been published that supports this theory.
Against the idea that this process was used significantly before it became widespread in the mid-15th century, is the fact that it had to be done on a large-scale to be financially viable. There is no evidence of large-scale liquation before Nuremberg. Also, efficient liquation requires an extremely skilled practitioner. Anyone with that much skill is unlikely to spend much time on something unprofitable.
Some suggest liquation existed even earlier. Babylonian texts from Mari
Mari, Syria
Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria...
mention that ‘mountain copper’ was ‘washed’ to produce ‘washed copper’ and that lead was used with silver to produce ‘washed silver’. Some say this shows liquation was being carried out in the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
as early as the second millennium BC. Crucially, however, these texts do not specifically mention lead being used with copper to produce silver, as would be expected for liquation.
Importance
John U. Nef, an expert on RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, described liquation as ‘even more important than the invention of the printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
’ for the development of industry
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
during this period. It increased production of silver on a massive scale. Between 1460 and 1530, the output of silver increased as much as fivefold in central Europe. This had a secondary effect of lowering the costs of producing copper at a time when its demand had increased due to the needs of the brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
making industry, and the use of copper on ships and roofs. Lead production also received a boost, indeed the lack of lead available held the liquation process back until a large lead-bearing seam was discovered at Tarnowitz in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
Liquation triggered an increase in mining operations, and a new class of wealthy merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s clamoured to participate. Some of the wealthiest merchants in Europe invested in mining, including the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
Royal Banker Jacques Coeur and the powerful Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
family of Florence. However, most of the funds came from merchants in neighbouring towns. For example the burghers of Nuremberg funded mines in the mountains of Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
and the Harz.
Many new copper and silver mines sprang up. A mines at Joachimstal, in the Erzgebirge, was so successful that a coin called the ‘Joachimstaler
Thaler
The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
’ was created, which led to the term, dollar
Dollar
The dollar is the name of the official currency of many countries, including Australia, Belize, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.-Etymology:...
. Others of note included Schneeberg
Schneeberg, Saxony
Schneeberg is a town in Saxony’s district of Erzgebirgskreis. It has roughly 16,400 inhabitants and belongs to the Town League of Silberberg . It lies 4 km west of Aue, and southeast of Zwickau.- Location :...
, and Annaberg
Annaberg
Annaberg is a former district in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It was bounded by the Czech Republic and the districts of Aue-Schwarzenberg, Stollberg and Mittlerer Erzgebirgskreis. Its national colors are pink, green, and blue.- History :In the Middle Ages the Ore Mountains were virtually...
(also in the Erzgebirge), Schwaz
Schwaz
Schwaz is a city in Tyrol, Austria. It is the administrative center of the Schwaz district . Schwaz is located in the lower Inn valley, and has a population of about 13,000....
, in the valley of the Inn
Inn River
The Inn is a river in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. It is a right tributary of the Danube and is approximately 500km long. The highest point of its drainage basin is the summit of Piz Bernina, at 4,049 metres.- Geography :...
, and at Neusohl in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. The new mining wealth allowed some of the largest mines of previous centuries to reopen, such as the silver-bearing lead and copper mines of Rammelsberg
Mines of Rammelsberg
The Rammelsberg is a mountain, high, on the northern edge of the Harz, south of the town of Goslar in the north German state of Lower Saxony. The mountain is the location of an important mine, the only mine which had been working continuously for over 1,000 years when it finally closed in 1988...
. These old mines had previously been abandoned due to flooding, collapses, lack of technology, or simply a lack of money. Now shafts could be sunk deeper and water more efficiently drained, so miners could work seams once out of reach.
Liquation-based wealth helped build roads between mining and processing regions, and financed improvements to mining technology. Thus its influence went beyond just increasing silver and copper production. It helped revive the economy of large parts of Europe, and the mining of other metals such as iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
and mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
.