CHAP. X. 



MIDDLE AGES. 239 



vert to those which now form a part of the 

 Turkish dominions. The celebrity of the mines 

 of Macedonia in the early ages has been already 

 spoken of, and we now revert to them at a later 

 period. Dr. Belon of Paris, physician to Francis 

 the first, visited those mines by order of that 

 monarch between the years 1546 and 1549. He 

 found the mines in the village of Siderocapso, 

 not far from Thessalonica or Salon ica. " They 

 are," he says, "on the side of a mountain, and the 

 situation very much resembles that of Joachim- 

 tahl in Bohemia." 



The working of the mines and the trade they 

 occasioned had drawn together a great number 

 of people, so that the place had more the appear- 

 ance of a city than a village. The inhabitants 

 were of various nations Sclavonians,Bulgarians, 

 Greeks, Albanians. Besides them were many 

 Jews, who conversed with each other in the 

 Spanish language. These latter people were 

 accused of corrupting the gold by mixing with 

 it various alloys. They divided the gold so 

 alloyed into several classes, denominating each, 

 according to their purity, ducat-gold, pistole- 

 gold, crown-gold, or maille-gold. 



The manner of working both the mines and 

 the metal had been introduced by Germans, as 

 the names of all their implements and of all the 

 operations which were performed were expressed 

 in that language ; but the mode of separating 



