Reminiscences of Werner and Freiberg. 347 
if it were by means of this vast series of mining operations 
alone, that we should leave behind us a monument of stupend- 
ous art, which might be compared with the remains trans- 
mitted to us by periods long gone by. The more I became 
acquainted with the mines of Freiberg, so much the more did 
the importance of the whole system become apparent. Min- 
ing had enriched mineralogists with observations of the most 
important kind, while at the same time it was in fact intended 
to exercise a great influence on the interests of the state. The 
miners also did not interest me less, than the value and finan- 
cial importance of their labours. I visited their huts with 
great interest. They are a good-humoured, peaceable race ; 
but I could find but few traces in them of subterranean ima- 
gination, or any thing at all poetic that might have given a 
higher character to their laborious occupations. Pinching 
poverty and ceaseless anxiety for the immediate future, al- 
lowed neither pleasure, pain, hope, nor fear, to exhibit itself 
in a poetically joyous or sad form. 
Thad a private course of instruction from Kohler on the ad- 
ministration of the mining system, and on mining itself, in so 
far as it was important for my purpose. At my desire he also 
added some historical information respecting the origin and pro- 
gress of the mines, and, in this respect, the organization of the 
Saxon mining system is very remarkable. It was naturally 
and quietly developed, as necessity gradually called it forth. 
This was the first time that I had clearly followed out the his- 
tory of any particular practical subject; and this voluntary li- 
mitation to an entirely isolated topic, seemed to me to promise 
unexpected conclusions as to other branches of the development 
of the human species. The result, however, of this history of 
mining left a disagreeable, nay, a mournful impression on my 
mind. The mining operations began in the 13th century, and 
rumours of the unbounded richness in native metals and noble 
ores form the foreground of this history. The oldest masses 
which were formed, clothed the walls of both sides of the open 
fissures in rocks. Newer formations produced a new covering, 
and the oftener these formations were repeated, many of which 
were of entirely different kinds, the more were the fissures con- 
tracted. Thus, as Werner believed, were the vein-masses filled 
