1 1 6 The Hartz. 



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tion, for the waters coming from these particular galleries evidently 

 contain a portion of the two sulphates ; that of copper might be decom- 

 posed by iron and collected, as is practiced elsewhere with so much 

 profit. 



On account of the nature of the ore, which is compact and exces- 

 sively hard, the system of extraction here employed differs from that 

 practiced in any other part of the Hartz, and perhaps in the world. 

 To give an idea of the obstacles with which the miners employed at 

 the Ramelsberg have to contend, we join the following extract of a 

 process verbal, drawn up in 1 808, to prove the impossibility of apply- 

 ing the ordinary mode of extraction, (by means of powder.) The 

 ore in which this essay was commenced, was compact, very hard, 

 and chiefly composed of iron and copper pyrites. "A workman was 

 employed eighty eight hours in boring a hole four inches deep ; dur- 

 ing this time two hundred and one boring augers were rehardened, 

 twenty six were remounted with steel, and one hundred and twenty 

 six were entirely destroyed." The method of working actually 

 employed is by fire, which has a powerful disaggregating action upon 

 the ore. The heat is applied by means of a pile of fir wood, 

 built up from the floor to the ceiling of the gallery ; this wood is of ea- 

 sy ignition and like all resinous woods, produces a great deal of flame, 

 sometime after the fire is put to the pile a continual cracking is heard, 

 produced by the disaggregation, and falling of the detached ore. 

 Without doubt this separation is due chiefly to the expansive force of 

 those matters capable of taking a gaseous form as arsenic, sulphur, wa- 

 ter, &c. After the temperature has sufficiently fallen, the workmen ar- 

 rive,and separate a great deal of ore attacked, but not detached by the 

 fire. Notwithstanding the great action of heat the use of powder 

 cannot be thus entirely replaced, for there is a certain part of the 

 gallery, the inferior angle, upon which the flame has little or no ac- 

 tion, and the employment of powder is of absolute necessity which 

 enormously increases the expenses of extraction. All expenses paid 

 for the extraction of forty tons of ore by the method of blasting, cost 

 from thirty eight to forty Prussian dollars, and the same quantity by 

 means of fire twelve dollars and a half. The Prussian dollar is 

 equal to seventy five cents. Thus if by any means the combustibles 

 in the Hartz should be destroyed or become so scarce as not to per- 

 mit of being thus employed, either some other mode of extraction 

 sufficiently economical should be substituted, or the ruinous necessity 

 of abandoning the Ramelsberg will be a necessary consequence. 

 The quantity of ore extracted per week is about forty tons. 



