BOOK I. 31 



finally, the mine foreman may conceal the vein by plastering over with 

 clay that part where the metal abounds, or by covering it with earth, 

 stones, stakes, or poles, in the hope that after several years the pro- 

 prietors, thinking the mine exhausted, will abandon it, and the foreman 

 can then excavate that remainder of the ore and keep it for himself. 

 They even state that the scum of the miners exist wholly by fraud, 

 deceit, and lying. For to speak of nothing else, but only of those 

 deceits which are practised in buying and selling, it is said they either 

 advertise the veins with false and imaginary praises, so that they can 

 sell the shares in the mines at one-half more than they are worth, or 

 on the contrary, they sometimes detract from the estimate of them so 

 that they can buy shares for a small price. By exposing such frauds our 

 critics suppose all good opinion of miners is lost. Now, all wealth, 

 whether it has been gained by good or evil means, is Uable by some adverse 

 chance to vanish away. It decays and is dissipated by the fault and care- 

 lessness of the owner, since he loses it through laziness and neglect, or 

 wastes and squanders it in luxuries, or he consumes and exhausts it in gifts, 

 or he dissipates and throws it away in gambling : 



" Just as though money sprouted up again, renewed from an exhausted 

 coffer, and was always to be obtained from a full heap." 



It is therefore not to be wondered at if miners do not keep in mind the 

 counsel given by King Agathocles : " Unexpected fortune should be held 

 in reverence," for by not doing so they fall into penury ; and particularly 

 when the miners are not content with moderate riches, they not rarely spend 

 on new mines what they have accumulated from others. But no just niler 

 or magistrate deprives owners of their possessions ; that, however, may be 

 done by a tyrant, who may cruelly rob his subjects not only of their goods 

 honestly obtained, but even of Ufe itself. And yet whenever I have inquired 

 into the complaints which are in common vogue, I always find that the 

 owners who are abused have the best of reasons for driving the men from 

 the mines ; while those who abuse the owners have no reason to complain 

 about them. Take the case of those who, not having paid their contributions, 

 have lost the right of possession, or those who have been expelled by the magis- 

 trate out of another man's mine : for some wicked men, mining the small 

 veins branching from the veins rich in metal, are wont to invade the property 

 of another person. So the magistrate expels these men accused of wrong, 

 and drives them from the mine. They then very frequently spread 

 unpleasant rumours concerning this amongst the populace. Or. to take 

 another case: when, as often happens, a dispute arises between neighbours, 

 arbitrators appointed by the magistrate settle it, or the regular judges 

 investigate and give judgment. Consequently, when the judgment is given, 

 inasmuch as each party has consented to submit to it, neither side should 

 complain of injustice ; and when the controversy is adjudged, inasmuch as 

 the decision is in accordance with the laws concerning mining, one of the 

 parties cannot be injured by the law. I do not vigorously contest the point, 

 that at times a mine superintendent may exact a larger contribution 



