锌是发见颇迟的金属,但锌的使用和提炼我国比西洋早得多。锌的合金,我国很早就有用的,不过它开始的时代,近人研究所得,议论不甚一致。现先把我国炼金属锌的史迹,逆溯上去,再论到使用含锌合金的古史。记载金属锌制法和使用最清楚的,是明末宋应星著的天工开物。那时称锌为倭铅,它附在铜后,大旨说:“古书无倭铅,是近世所立名色,用炉甘石炼成,多产山西太行山一带,湖南荆衡次之。用炉甘石十斤装泥罐内,把泥封固,勿使见火裂缝。然后用煤炭逐层盛垫,铺薪发火煅红,炉甘石便在罐中镕化成团,冷定毁罐取出,即是倭铅。此物无铜收伏,入火便成烟飞去,它似铅而性猛,所以称倭。”查炉甘石是碳酸锌所成的菱锌矿, Zinc is a late-found metal, but the use and refinement of zinc in China is much earlier than in the West. Zinc alloy, China has long been useful, but it began the era of recent research, the argument is not uniform. Now the history of our country’s zinc refining, retrospectively, and then to the use of zinc alloy history. Zinc metal records method and use the most clear, the Ming and Qing should be the stars of the Heavenly Creations. At that time, zinc was named as Japanese lead, which was attached to the copper. After the copper was attached to it, Grand Theology said: “The ancient books have no lead in the world. They are established in the modern world and are made from calamine, prolific in the Taihang Mountains in Shanxi Province, followed by Hunan Jingheng. Garnet ten pounds installed clay pot, the mud seal, do not see the fire cracks.Then the coal layer by layer with mat, pay fire red calcined, calamine stone in the tank melted into a group, , That is, Japanese lead. This thing without copper Fu volts, into the fire into the smoke fly, it looks like lead and fierce, so called Japanese. ”Check calamine is made of zinc carbonate calamine,