expenses and losses, in the end spend the most bitter and most miserable of lives. But persons who hold these views do not perceive how much a learned and experienced miner differs from one ignorant and unskilled in the art.
The latter digs out the ore without any careful discrimination, while the former first assays and proves it, and when he finds the veins either too narrow and hard, or too wide and soft, he infers therefrom that these cannot be mined profitably, and so works only the approved ones. What wonder then if we find the incompetent miner suffers loss, while the competent one is rewarded by an abundant return from his mining? The same thing applies to husbandmen. For those who cultivate land which is alike arid, heavy, and barren, and in which they sow seeds, do not make so great a harvest as those who cultivate a fertile and mellow soil and sow their grain in that. And since by far the greater number of miners are unskilled rather than skilled in the art, it follows that mining is a profitable occupation to very few men, and a source of loss to many more. Therefore the mass of miners who are quite unskilled and ignorant in the knowledge of veins not infrequently lose both time and trouble[1]. Such men are accustomed for the most part to take to mining, either when through being weighted with the fetters of large and heavy debts, they have abandoned a business, or desiring to change their occupation, have left the reaping-hook and plough; and so if at any time such a man discovers rich veins or other abounding mining produce, this occurs more by good luck than through any knowledge on his part. We learn from history that mining has brought wealth to many, for from old writings it is well known that prosperous Republics, not a few kings, and many private persons, have made fortunes through mines and their produce. This subject, by the use of many clear and illustrious examples, I have dilated upon and explained in the first Book of my work entitled "De Veteribus et Novis Metallis," from which it is evident that mining is very profitable to those who give it care and attention.
Again, those who condemn the mining industry say that it is not in the least stable, and they glorify agriculture beyond measure. But I do not see how they can say this with truth, for the silver-mines at Freiberg in Meissen remain still unexhausted after 400 years, and the lead mines of Goslar after 600 years. The proof of this can be found in the monuments of history. The gold and silver mines belonging to the communities of Schemnitz and Cremnitz have been worked for 800 years, and these latter are said to be the most ancient privileges of the inhabitants. Some then say the profit from an individual mine is unstable, as if forsooth, the miner is, or ought to be dependent on only one mine, and as if many men do not bear in common their expenses in mining, or as if one experienced in his art does not dig another vein, if fortune does not amply respond to his prayers in the first case. The New Schonberg at Freiberg has remained stable beyond the memory of man[2].
