neath which is the sixth stratum, likewise dark, but rough and three feet thick. Afterward occurs the seventh stratum, likewise of dark colour, but still darker than the last, and two feet thick. This is followed by an eighth stratum, ashy, rough, and a foot thick. This kind, as also the others, is sometimes distinguished by stringers of the stone which easily melts in fire of the second order. Beneath this is another ashy rock, light in weight, and five feet thick. Next to this comes a lighter ash-coloured one, a foot thick; beneath this lies the eleventh stratum, which is dark and very much like the seventh, and two feet thick. Below the last is a twelfth stratum of a whitish colour arid soft, also two feet thick; the weight of this rests on a thirteenth stratum, ashy and one foot thick, whose weight is in turn supported by a fourteenth stratum, which is blackish and half a foot thick. There follows this, another stratum of black colour, likewise half a foot thick, which is again followed by a sixteenth stratum still blacker in colour, whose thickness is also the same. Beneath this, and last of all, lies the cupriferous stratum, black coloured and schistose, in which there sometimes glitter scales of gold-coloured pyrites in the very thin sheets, which, as I said elsewhere, often take the forms of various living things.[1]
The miners mine out a vena dilatata laterally and longitudinally by driving a low tunnel in it, and if the nature of the work and place permit, they sink also a shaft in order to discover whether there is a second vein beneath the first one; for sometimes beneath it there are two, three, or more similar metal-bearing veins, and these are excavated in the same way laterally and longitudinally. They generally mine venæ dilatatæ lying down; and to
- ↑ The strata here enumerated are given in the Glossary of De Re Metallica as follows:
Corium terrae Die erd oder leim. Saxum rubrum Rot gebirge. Alterum item rubrum Roterkle. Argilla cinerea Thone. Tertium saxum Gerhulle. Cineris vena Asche. Quartum saxum Gniest. Quintum saxum Schwehlen. Sextum saxum Oberrauchstein. Septimum saxum Zechstein. Octavum saxum Under rauchstein. Nonum saxum Blitterstein. Decimum saxum Oberschuelen. Undecimum saxum Mittelstein. Duodecimum saxum Under schuelen. Decimumtertium saxum Dach. Decimumquartum saxum Norweg. Decimumquintum saxum Lotwerg. Decimumsextum saxum Kamme. Lapis aerosus fissilis Schifer. The description is no doubt that of the Mannsfeld cupriferous slates. It is of some additional interest as the first attempt at stratigraphic distinctions, although this must not be taken too literally, for we have rendered the different numbered “saxum” in this connection as “stratum.” The German terms given by Agricola above, can many of them be identified in the miners' terms to-day for the various strata at Mannsfeld. Over the kupferschiefer the names to-day are kammschale, dach, faule, zechstein, rauchwacke, rauchstein, asche. The relative thickness of these beds is much the same as given by Agricola. The stringers in the 8th stratum of stone, which fuse in the fire of the second order, were possibly calcite. The rauchstein of the modern section is distinguished by stringers of calcite, which give it at times a brecciated appearance.
