66 MINES OF CHAP. II. 



begun, was continued during a succession of 

 centuries ; but the progressive improvements in- 

 troduced were not so much the effect of any fo- 

 reign teaching, as the result of their diligent and 

 energetic investigations of the best systems of 

 operating. 



It is impossible, whilst looking at this subject, 

 not to lament the loss of the works of Theo- 

 phrastus, who besides the treatise De Lapidibus, 

 which has come down to us, is said to have 

 written many other valuable works, especially 

 on minerals, about 300 years before the Christian 

 era ; scattered fragments of which are to be 

 found in the writings of those who succeeded 

 him during the following three or four centuries. 

 It is to these extracts and to other passages also 

 incidentally inserted in works on subjects of a 

 different nature, that we must have our chief 

 recourse in our inquiries into the mining pro- 

 gress of the Greeks, though traces of the exist- 

 ence of the art may be found in Homer and 

 other authors of a date anterior to Theophrastus. 



Although the chief object in this inquiry is 

 into the production of the precious metals, yet 

 it is scarcely possible to separate wholly the pro- 

 gress made in raising and purifying them from 

 that of the discovery and application of the 

 metals of inferior value. They are so mingled 

 together in the writings of the early ages, and 

 the operations in them were conducted in a 



