["During The Next Stage To Darband, We Passed Ruins That I Believe To Be
Those Of Marco Polo's 'Cobinan' As
The modern Kuhbenan does not at all fit
in with the great traveller's description, and it is just as well
To
remember that in the East the caravan routes seldom change." (Captain P.
M. Sykes, Geog. Jour. X. p. 580. - See Persia, ch. xxiii.)
Kuh Banan has been visited by Mr. E. Stack, of the Indian Civil Service.
(Six Months in Persia, London, 1882, I. 230.) - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - Tutty (i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of
zinc, collected from the flues where brass is made; and this appears to be
precisely what Polo describes, unless it be that in his account the
production of tutia from an ore of zinc is represented as the object and
not an accident of the process. What he says reads almost like a condensed
translation of Galen's account of Pompholyx and Spodos: "Pompholyx is
produced in copper-smelting as Cadmia is; and it is also produced from
Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for
instance) in Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready
for smelting, ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my
presence. Small pieces of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the
copper-blast. The furnace top was covered, with no vent at the crown, and
intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. This, when collected,
constitutes Pompholyx, whilst that which falls on the hearth is called
Spodos, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he
adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules. (Galen,
De Simpl. Medic., p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576.) Matthioli, after
quoting this, says that Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories
by the Arabic name of Tutia. I see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to
form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment.
Teixeira speaks of tutia as found only in Kerman, in a range of mountains
twelve parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with
water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked,
the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to
Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which
says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an
argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked
to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in
saying that the tutia of Kerman is no mineral, but the ash of a certain
tree called Goan.
(Matth. on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40; Teixeira, Relacion de
Persia, p. 121; Milburne's Or. Commerce, I. 139; Garcia, f. 21 v.;
Eng. Cyc., art. Zinc.)
[General A. Houtum-Schindler (Jour. R. As. Soc. N.S. XIII. October,
1881, p. 497) says:
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