Re: Vineland

From: Martyn Harrison (nospam_at_spammers.of.the.world.unite)
Date: 02/19/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 13:59:42 GMT

Apparently on date Fri, 18 Feb 2005 22:43:47 GMT, "I.E_Johansson"
<inger_e.johansson@telia.com> said:

>
>"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz> skrev i meddelandet
>news:57ic11tec7nkp4i4kuggsh7bmcov23tn8k@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:04:55 GMT, Never anonymous Bud
>> <newskat@katxyzkave.net> wrote:
>>
>> >Using a finger dipped in purple ink, Seppo Renfors <Renfors@not.com.au>
>scribed:
>> >
>> >>Let me remind you of this "Thomas Cahill of the University of
>> >>California, Davis, together with 6 colleagues ..... determined that
>> >>although titanium is indeed often present in the ink, it is to be
>> >>found only in minute quantities, far less than McCrone had reported."
>> >
>> >While you either ignore, OR are ignorant of, the fact that the titanium
>> >is NOT naturally occurring, but milled to very small size.
>>
>> Crystallised and milled to a very uniform size range.
>> >
>> >This DOES date it, as to the oldest it can be.
>
>But there exist, and that's what some here seem to be unaware of, ink from
>Medieval Age containing exact that type of Titanium which scholars have been
>so kind enought to say not was possible to exist before 1900.....

For the benefit of any lurkers who don't understand the issues here. Also you
Inger, as you are arguing against an assertion that hasn't been made the way
you are taking it.

Anatase is a mineral, that is a type of rock. It's naturally occurring and
anatase existed long before history began. It's a simple chemical - TiO2 which
is just Titanium Dioxide.

It's not particularly surprising to find it anywhere in the world from any
period. Viking maps could use it, not a problem.

The anatase consists of TiO2 in a crystalline structure, sort of pointy diamond
shapes. The more molecules in the crystal, the larger it is.

The crystals will, if you take anatase and grind it down, tend to comprise a
variety of shapes, fragments and sizes, they'll be microscopic rather than big
lumps, obviously, you keep going until it's a powder.

Now the key issue in this question is this:

1) when you grind down the mineral anatase into a fine powder, you will get a
range of sizes of the particles.

2) if you then use a process of filtering and grading, you can take a quantity
of anatase powder and produce various grades, e.g. fine particles for use in
pharmaceutical, low abrasion and foodstuffs, coarser particles for paper
surface treatments, and so on.

The characteristics of "making anatase into a powder" mean range of particle
sizes. And an industrial process of refining the powder for a range of
applications with different needs or to produce better properties, means a
given product from that refinement will have a consistent particle size
because, that's the difference between a generic powdered anatase and a modern,
refined product from an industrial process.

Some of the industrial product will have consistently large particles, some
will have consistently small particles, some will be a mixture of specific
sized particles, e.g. a 33% / 67% mix of 170 - 230 nm and 500 - 650 nm
particles, or whatever. You can *also* have a modern output of a range of
different particle sizes of anatase because you can just not bother to grade
and refine the ground up dust. That can be old or modern.

When the white pigment was studied, the study alleges that what they found was
a consistent size of anatase particles and they concluded this was indicative
of an industrial process because refining the powdered anatase is how you get
that phenomenon.

You don't get it from grinding it down, and you don't need it to make white
pigment in medieval times. Hence, the suggestion - and it's a strong one - is
that commercially graded anatase didn't really come about until the modern era
and this is commercial grade anatase rather than something merely ground down
to make pigment.

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