238 MINING IN THE 



CHAP. X. 



to a metallic value ; but in the period under 

 consideration, though diligence has not been 

 restricted to a slight search, no such notices of 

 prices have been found as can be entitled to 

 any confidence. In that respect those centuries 

 may be emphatically denominated the dark ages. 



It may however be inferred, and that without 

 any great presumption, that the decline in prices 

 had been gradual during the whole course of 

 centuries, because in the following ages, when 

 notices of prices do occur, as will be hereafter 

 shown, they had fallen so excessively that no- 

 thing but a very slow and gradual depression, and 

 that of universal extent, could have prevented 

 their being remarked as a most extraordinary 

 phenomenon. 



Before we proceed to take a view of the mining 

 operations at the period when, after a long ces- 

 sation, they were again resumed in several of 

 the countries of Europe, we must premise that 

 the information which can be obtained is neither 

 precise nor statistical. Diligence may inquire 

 without obtaining satisfactory answers, and it 

 must suffice to produce such answers to the 

 public as can be obtained, which, even when 

 condensed into a narrow compass, may, at least 

 it is so apprehended in the present case, appear 

 to the readers to be prolix and perhaps tiresome. 

 Turkey. Before examining the state of the mining in 

 the other parts of Europe, we may properly ad- 



