214 BOOK VI. 



machines and come up again, that is by inclined shafts which are twisted Uke 

 a screw and have steps cut in the rock, as I have already described. 



It remains for me to speak of the ailments and accidents of miners, and of 

 the methods by which they can guard against these, for we should always 

 devote more care to maintaining our health, that we may freely perform our 

 bodily functions, than to making profits. Of the illnesses, some affect the 

 joints, others attack the lungs, some the eyes, and finally some are fatal to 

 men. 



Where water in shafts is abundant and very cold, it frequently injures 

 the limbs, for cold is harmful to the sinews. To meet this, miners should 

 make themselves sufficiently high boots of rawhide, which protect their 

 legs from the cold water ; the man who does not follow this advice will 

 suffer much ill-health, especially when he reaches old age. On the other 

 hand, some mines are so dry that they are entirely devoid of water, and this 

 dryness causes the workmen even greater harm, for the dust which is stirred 

 and beaten up by digging penetrates into the windpipe and lungs, and 

 produces difficulty in breathing, and the disease which the Greeks call 

 iaOna. If the dust has corrosive qualities, it eats away the lungs, and 

 implants consumption in the body ; hence in the mines of the Carpathian 

 Mountains women are found who have married seven husbands, all of whom 

 this terrible consumption has carried off to a premature death. At Altenberg 

 in Meissen there is found in the mines black pompholyx, which eats wounds 

 and ulcers to the bone ; this also corrodes iron, for which reason the keys 

 of their sheds are made of wood. Further, there is a certain kind of cadmia ^^ 

 which eats away the feet of the workmen when they have become wet, and 

 similarly their hands, and injures their lungs and eyes. Therefore, for their 



*^This is given in the German translation as kohelt. The kohelt (or cobaltum of Agricola) 

 was probably arsenical-cobalt, a mineral common in the Saxon mines. The origin of the 

 application of the word cobalt to a mineral appears to lie in the German word for the gnomes 

 and goblins (kohelts) so universal to Saxon miners' imaginations, — this word in turn probably 

 being derived from the Greek cobalt (mimes). The suffering described above seems to have 

 been associated with the malevolence of demons, and later the word for these demons was 

 attached to this disagreeable ore. A quaint series of mining " sermons," by Johann Mathesius, 

 entitled Sarepta oder Bergpostill, Niirnberg, 1562, contains the following passage (p. 154) 

 which bears out this view. We retain the original and varied spelling of cobalt and also add 

 another view of Mathesius, involving an experience of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre with some 

 mines containing cobalt. 



" Sometimes, however, from dry hard veins a certain black, greenish, grey or ash- 

 " coloured earth is dug out, often containing good ore, and this mineral being burnt gives strong 

 " fumes and is extracted like ' tutty.' It is called cadmia fossilis. You miners call it cohelt. 

 " Germans call the Black Devil and the old Devil's furies, old and black cobel, who injure people 

 " and their cattle with their witchcrafts. Now the Devil is a wicked, malicious spirit, who 

 " shoots his poisoned darts into the hearts of men, as sorcerers and witches shoot at the limbs 

 " of cattle and men, and work much evil and mischief with cobaU or hipotnane or horses' 

 " poison. After quicksilver and rotguUigen ore, are cobalt and wismuth fumes ; these are the 

 " most poisonous of the metals, and with them one can kill flies, mice, cattle, birds, and men. 

 " So, fresh cobalt and kisswasser (vitriol ?) devour the hands and feet of miners, and the dust 

 " and fumes of cobalt kill many mining people and workpeople who do much work among the 

 " fumes of the smelters. Whether or not the Devil and his hellish crew gave their name to 

 " cobelt, or kobell, nevertheless, cobelt is a poisonous and injurious metal even if it contains 

 " silver. I find in I. Kings 9, the word Cabul. When Solomon presented twenty towns in 

 " Galilee to the King of Tyre, Hiram visited them first, and would not have them, and said the 

 " land was well named Cabtd as Joshua had christened it. It is certain from Joshua that these 



