- into Sun and Moon. This use of planetary signs to designate metals dates from the infancy of alchemy. The Liber de mineralibus (III, i, 6; Borgnet ed., V), attributed to Albertus Magnus, gives the reasons for the planetary names of the metals. The Jammy (1651) and the Borgnet (1898) editions of the Alchimia frequently employ: Sol for gold, Luna for silver Venus for copper, Mercury for mercury, Saturn for lead, Jupiter for tin. When the planetary name is used in the Borgnet edition, the present translation capitalizes the name of the metal; for example, Venus is translated as Copper, but cuprum as copper. On the planetary designation of metals, see J. R. Partington, "Report of Discussion upon Chemical and Alchemical Symbolism, Ambix, I (1937), 61; and Pearl Kibre. "The Alkimia minor Ascribed to Albertus Magnus," Isis, XXXII (2) (June, 1949), 270. [Even more interesting than the replacement of the true names of the metals by those of the planets is the fact that the symbols representing the planets came to represent the metals, just as "we write H for an atom of hydrogen, [and] К for an atom of potassium,. . ."(F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists [New York: Schuman, 1949]. p. 51). This convenient shorthand goes back to the earliest Greek alchemical manuscripts, dating from around A.D. 250. "We have considerable lists of the signs in the oldest Greek manuscripts. Some of them are derived from the signs of the planet with which the metals were associated, others from the pictorial representations of the things symbolized, others from the initial letters of the name.
"The connection of the planets and metals is certainly ancient, and it persists throughout the whole of alchemy.
"The metals have all received planetary signs. Gold receiving the sign ..., representing the sun; silver the sign of the waxing moon ...; mercury that of the waning moon ... (Hermes speaks of "that which drips from the waning moon"); copper has the sign of Venus (Aphrodite-Isis-Hathor) ♀ ; lead has the sign of Saturn ...; iron has the sign of Mars ♂. There remain the signs of electrum and tin. Tin has in these old lists the symbol of Hermes, and electrum that of Zeus. In later times (between 500 and 700 A.D.) the symbol of Hermes was given to mercury in place of that of the waning moon. Electrum was no longer considered a separate metal, and its symbol was then given to tin.