Reminiscences of Werner and Freiberg. 345 
While our two most important individuals were Charpentier 
and Werner, our communication became extended with the 
most distinguished men of foreign countries, who were attracted 
by the high reputation of the latter. The life at Freiberg had 
now a great charm for me, in consequence of the new world 
which was opened up. We provided ourselves with mining 
dresses, in which we diligently traversedthe mines. Werner had 
advised us to begin with the united mine of Himmelfahrt and 
Abraham, because its passages, &c. were the least complicated. 
We went there twice a week; and the mining world made a 
great impression on me. These subterranean regions, and 
the deep night which reigned in the shafts and galleries, pre- 
sented to me something irresistibly attractive. It certainly 
cost us no small labour to distinguish the veinous masses, and 
the minerals of which they were composed, in the darkness 
which was so sparingly illuminated by the mining lamps, and 
in the midst of wet and mud. It was still more difficult—nay, it 
appeared at first almost impossible—for us to follow the direc- 
tion of the veins, in which we directed our course by the 
compass, and to learn clearly how they crossed one another, 
cut each other at acute angles, or were interrupted by fissures. 
When we descended the perpendicular ladders, when the blue 
of heaven gradually disappeared through the opening ; when 
the great wheel, by means of which the water of the day was 
set in motion, made its revolutions close to us in the narrow 
rocky aperture, and the sound of the bell indicated each turn; 
while around us, on all sides, the drops, quietly murmuring, 
unceasingly fell down :—we were at first peculiarly affected by 
singular and strange feelings. By degrees, we descended the 
more distant mines of Beschert Gliick, Himmelsfiirst, and Kur- 
prinz, with their rich ores. A stranger attending the academy 
receives, on application, directly from the Elector, the permis- 
sion to examine all the mines of the Erzgebirge, with the ex- 
ception of the arsenic and cobalt mines of Annabergand Schnee- 
berg. My fancy was highly excited as I gradually witnessed the 
great extent, and the mighty, far-extending internal connec- 
tion of the subterranean workings. For a period of five hun- 
dred years, the interior of the rocks had been penetrated in 
