98 MINES IN 



CHAP. IT. 



enable us to form accurate ideas of the quantity 

 of the precious metals they yielded, or of com- 

 paring their produce with that of the other mines 

 which fell into the hands of the all-conquering 

 Romans. 



The accounts thaf seem to approach the 

 nearest to precision are those given by Pliny; 

 but it is to be recollected that he wrote three 

 hundred years after the time when the mines 

 had been wrested from the Carthaginians by the 

 Romans, and when their produce had greatly 

 declined from what he represents it to have for- 

 merly been. 



We find in that author the following general 

 view: "Some have related that Asturias, Gal- 

 licia, andLusitania furnish two thousand pounds 

 of gold annually; but Asturias supplies the 

 most; nor in any other part of the world, during 

 so many ages, has so great a quantity been ob- 

 tained. In every species of gold there is a pro- 

 portion of silver ; in some, one tenth part, in 

 others a ninth, and in others an eighth. In one 

 kind of gold alone, called Albicavense a , there is 

 only one thirty-sixth part of silver, on which ac- 

 count it is more valued than any other 2 ." 



In another chapter he says, " Silver is found 



1 Albicavensis is not to be found in Spain. The Albici 

 are noticed by Julius Caesar as a people in Gallia Aquitania 

 (Bell. Civ. i. cap. 34.), but not as producing gold or silver. 



2 Pliny, book xxxiii. cap. 4. 



