826 



MINE'J MINERALOGY. 



II. The mines in Flats mountains are highly 

 important, above all, the coal mines the principal 

 wealth of Britain this country alone furnishing 

 400,000,000 cwt.; France 20,000,000; the Nether- 

 lands and the countries along the Rhine, 62,000,000; 

 Silesia, 6,000,000; Saxony, 1,200,000; Austria, 

 680,000 ; Bavaria, 320,000 ; Hanover, with the rest 

 of Germany, 6,000,000. The greater part of the 

 iron that is procured in Britain, is from the coal- 

 mountains. The same is the case in other countries, 

 for instance in Silesia. The lead mines in the vicin- 

 ity of Aix-la-Chapelle, which annually furnish 14 

 10,000 cwt. of lead, and upwards of 20,000 cwt. of 

 lead ore, called algui/ou, used for glazing earthen 

 ware, are in Floetz mountains ; also the copper mines 

 in the territory of Mannsfeld, at Frankenberg, Bie- 

 ber and Riegelsdorf in Hesse, the former yielding 

 10,000 cwt. of copper and 8000 marcs (5000 Ibs. 

 troy) of silver ; the important iron mines on the 

 Stahlberg, in the Hessian seignory of Schmalkalden ; 

 the lead mines at Tarnowitz, in Upper Silesia, annu- 

 ally yielding 5300 cwt. of lead and 1500 marcs (937 

 Ibs. troy) of silver ; the calamine and zinc mines in 

 Upper Silesia and Poland, which annually afford 

 80,000 cwL of calamine and 25,000 cwt. of zinc ; the 

 zinc mines of Britain and other countries already 

 mentioned ; the rock-salt mines in the southern part 

 of Germany, in Cheshire, at Vic in France, at 

 Wielizka and Bochnia, the latter affording almost 

 2,000,000 cwt. 



III. Of no less importance is the mineral wealth 

 of the alluvial regions. Platina, the greater part of 

 gold, a considerable quantity of tin and iron, also 

 diamonds and most of the other precious stones, are 

 concealed in sand, clay, &c., and obtained by wash- 

 Ing, (q. v.) 



Mining. The science of mining includes the scien- 

 tific knowledge requisite for opening and working 

 mines, as well as for preparing ores for use. It 

 requires a knowledge of mineralogy and geology 

 (q. v.), and of the different processes requisite in 

 mine working, for searching after useful minerals, 

 bringing them to the surface, mechanically and 

 chemically separating them, and removing all diffi- 

 culties that occur in the course of the work, the 

 sinking of shafts, propping up the superincumbent 

 earth, so as to give security to the miners, &c. This 

 security is obtained partly by the form of the pits, 

 by propping with stones, by suffering pillars of stone 

 to remain standing, by supports of timber or masonry. 

 Mining also includes the building of machinery, the 

 preparation of the ore for smelting, or the mechanical 

 separation of the useless minerals from the useful, as 

 well as of the different kinds of the latter from each 

 other. The preparation of the ore consists, in the 

 first place, in breaking asunder the larger pieces, 

 and then purifying them, by means of water, from 

 the earth which adheres to them ; in the separation 

 of the coarser substances from the finer, by means of 

 a sieve, that moves up and down in water ; in the 

 breaking of the ore in stamping-mills, which consist 

 either of hammers or iron cylinders, driven up and 

 down, and in the separation of the finely interspersed 

 metal from the stone or earth, with which it is sur- 

 rounded, by washing the broken ore in troughs or on 

 inclined tables crossed by a current of water ; the 

 heavier ore remains, while the lighter earthy and 

 stony substances are carried away by the water. 

 Mining also includes the final purification of the ore, 

 by means of acids, by amalgamation, by fusion, &c. 

 Mining Academies. In Germany, where the 

 science of mining had its origin, academies exist, in 

 which young men are instructed in the science of 

 mining, and educated as superintendents of mines, 

 founderies, or salt-works. These institutions have 



lx>en imitated in other countries. Such academics 

 exist at Freiberg in Saxony, at Schemnitz in Hun- 

 gary, at Petersburg, at Paris, at St Etienne, &c. 



MINERAL CAOUTCHOUC. See Bitumen. 



MINERALOGY, or THE NATURAL HIS- 

 TORY OF THE MINERAL KINGDOM, con- 

 sidered as a pure science, is of very recent date. 

 The observations made at first related simply to the 

 usefulness of minerals to the purposes of society, and 

 it was not before the lapse of many ages that they 

 came to be investigated on account of their great 

 variety and the beautiful arrangements of which 

 they are susceptible. The O^UKTO, and fitraXXsvra. of 

 Aristotle evince no valuable observations on the 

 part of that philosopher concerning minerals, and 

 are chiefly mentioned by him because he believed 

 the former to be derived from the earth, and the 

 latter from water. The allusions to mineral sub- 

 stances found in the writings of Theophrastus, Pliny, 

 Dioscorides, and Galen, are of more interest to the 

 antiquarian and philologist than to the natural his- 

 torian. No attempt to classify these bodies was 

 made previous to the introduction of alchemy into 

 Europe by the Arabians ; and to Avicenna belongs 

 the merit of the first arrangement. He divided 

 minerals into stones, metals, sulphureous fossils, and 

 salts a division which was generally adopted by the 

 chemists of those times, though opposed by the 

 naturalists, who confined their investigations to the 

 characters derived from the external forms of mine- 

 rals and their supposed medicinal virtues, but with- 

 out deriving from them any just grounds of classifi- 

 cation. According to one or the other of these 

 vicious methods was the science of mineralogy 

 treated, down to the sixteenth century, its cultivators 

 either implicitly adopting the ideas of the chemists, 

 or announcing themselves as little better than mere 

 empirical collectors of curiosities. 



Agricola (who was born in 1490, and died in 1555) 

 directed his views to the uniting these two classes, 

 though he inclined more strongly to the side of the 

 scholiasts than to that of the chemists. All minerals 

 (corpora subterranea) are divided by him into simple, 

 or such as consist of homogeneous particles, and 

 compounded, or such as are formed of heterogeneous 

 parts, taken in a mineralogical acceptation of the 

 terms. The minerals belonging to the former of 

 these divisions are found in four different forms, viz., 

 I. terra; 2. succus concretus ; 3. lapis; 4. metal- 

 him. Terra he defines as corpus fossile quod potest 

 manu subigi, cum fuerit aspcrsum humore, aut ex 

 quo cum fuerit madefactunt, fit lutum. These earths 

 he divides partly according to some external charac- 

 ters, partly after their localities, in cases where their 

 names are derived from the countries or places in 

 which they are found : Succus concretus est corpus 

 fossile siccum et subdurum, quod aquis aspersmn aut 

 non mollitur, sed liquescit, aut, simollitur, multum vel 

 pinguitudine differt a terra, vel materia ex qua con- 

 stat. The fossils of this class Agricola divided into 

 macro and pinguia. The former consists of a juice, 

 partly mixed with earth (sal nitrum), partly with 

 metal (chrysocolla, aerugo, ferrugo, cairuleum), partly 

 mixed both with earth and metal (atramentum, 

 sutorium, alumen, &c.) ; to the latter he refers sul- 

 phur, bitumen, sandarach, and auripigmentum. The 

 stones are the third class of Agricola's system. 

 Lapis est corpus fossile siccum et durum, quod vel 

 aqua longinquo tempore vix moflit, ignis vehement 

 redigit in pulverem ; vel non mollit aqua, sed maximo 

 ignis liquescit calore. The stones are subdivided 

 into lapis, gemma, marmor, and saxum. His defini- 

 tion of metals, being his fourth class, is corpus fossile 

 natura vel liquidum vel durum quidem, sed quod ignis 

 liquescit calore. He enumerates ten metals. The 



