written in Book I. of my work " De Veteribus et Novis Metallic ")[1] ; or they may be exposed through the force of the wind, when it uproots and destroys the trees which have grown over the veins; or by the breaking away of the rocks; or by long-continued heavy rains tearing away the mountain; or by an earthquake; or by a lightning flash; or by a snowslide; or by the violence of the winds: "Of such a nature are the rocks hurled down from the mountains by the force of the winds aided by the ravages of time." Or the plough may uncover the veins, for Justin relates in his history that nuggets of gold had been turned up in Galicia by the plough; or this may occur through a fire in the forest, as Diodorus Siculus tells us happened in the silver mines in Spain; and that saying of Posidonius is appropriate enough: " The earth violently moved by the fires consuming the forest sends forth new products, namely, gold and silver."[2] . And indeed, Lucretius has explained the same thing more fully in the following lines: " Copper and gold and iron were discovered, and at the same time weighty silver and the substance of lead, when fire had burned up vast forests on the great hills, either by a discharge of heaven’s lightning, or else because, when men were waging war with one another, forest fires had carried fire among the enemy in order to strike terror to them, or because, attracted by the goodness of the soil, they wished to clear rich fields and bring the country into pasture, or else to destroy wild beasts and enrich themselves with the game; for hunting with pitfalls and with fire came into use before the practice of enclosing the wood with toils and rousing the game with dogs. Whatever the fact is, from
- ↑ The statement in De Veteribus et Novis Metallis (p. 394) is as follows: " It came about by chance and accident that the silver mines were discoyered at " Freiberg in Meissen. By the river Sala, which is not unknown to Strabo, is Hala, which " was once country, but is now a large town; the site, at any rate, even from Roman times " was famous and renowned for its salt springs, for the possession of which the Hermunduri " fought with the Chatti. When people carried the salt thence in wagons, as they now do " straight through Meissen (Saxony) into Bohemia which is lacking in that seasoning to-day " no less than formerly they saw galena in the wheel tracks, which had been uncovered by " the torrents. This lead ore, since it was similar to that of Goslar, they put into their carts " and carried to Goslar, for the same carriers were accustomed to carry lead from that city. " And since much more silver was smelted from this galena than from that of Goslar, certain " miners betook themselves to that part of Meissen in which is now situated Freiberg, a " great and wealthy town; and we are told by consistent stories and general report that " they grew rich out of the mines." Agricola places the discovery of the mines at Freiberg at about 1170. See Note 11, p. 5.
- ↑ Diodorus Siculus (v., 35). " These places being covered with woods, it is said that " in ancient times these mountains were set on fire by shepherds, and continued burning for " many days, and parched the earth, so that an abundance of silver ore was melted, and " the metal flowed in streams of pure silver like a river." Aristotle, nearly three centuries belore Diodorus, mentions this same story (De Mirabilibus, 87): " They say that in Ibernia " the woods were set on fire by certain shepherds, and the earth thus heated, the country " visibly flowed silver; and when some time later there were earthquakes, and the earth " burst asunder at different places, a large amount of silver was collected." As the works of Posidonius are lost, it is probable that Agricola was quoting from Strabo (in., 2, 9), who says, in describing Spain: " Posidonius, in praising the amount and excellence of the " metals, cannot refrain from his accustomed rhetoric, and becomes quite enthusiastic in " exaggeration. He tells us we are not to disbelieve the fable that formerly the forests " having been set on fire, the earth, which was loaded with silver and gold, melted and " threw up these metals to the surface, for inasmuch as every mountain and wooded hill " seemed to be heaped up with money by a lavish fortune." (Hamilton’s Trans. I., p. 220). Or he may have been quoting from the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus (vi.), where Posidonius is quoted: " And the mountains . . . when once the woods upon them had caught fire, spontaneously ran with liquid silver."
