BOOK VIII. 



347 



a great number of deep ditches in rows in the gullies, slopes, and hollows of 

 the mountains. Into these ditches the water, whether flowing down from 

 snow melted by the heat of the sun or from rain, collects and carries together 

 with earth and sand, sometimes tin-stone, or, in the case of the Lusitanians, 

 the particles of gold loosened from veins and stringers. As soon as the 

 waters of the torrent have all run away, the miners throw the material out 

 of the ditches with iron shovels, and wash it in a common sluice box. 



A— Gully. B— Ditch. C— Torrent. D— Sluice box employed by the 



Lusitanians. 



The Poles wash the impure lead from venae dilatatae in a trough ten 

 feet long, three feet wide, and one and one-quarter feet deep. It is mixed 

 with moist earth and is covered by a wet and sandy clay, and so 

 first of all the clay, and afterward the ore, is dug out. The ore is carried 

 to a stream or river, and thrown into a trough into which water is admitted 

 by a Httle launder, and the washer standing at the lower end of the trough 

 drags the ore out with a narrow and nearly pointed hoe, whose wooden handle 

 is nearly ten feet long. It is washed over again once or twice in the same 

 way and thus made pure. Afterward when it has been dried in the sun 



