246 MINING IN THE 



CHAP. X. 



the planners of them must have had some know- 

 ledge of subterranean geometry. 



Of the more early working of these mines no 

 information could be obtained ; but, in more 

 recent times, they were discovered and opened, 

 in the fifteenth century, by King Sigismund, 

 who is said to have extracted from them trea- 

 sures of gold to an incredible amount *. 



In the Bohemian dominions of Austria there 

 were formerly gold washings. Those were in 

 the southern range of the mountains on the 

 river Iser, in the circles of Bedschow and 

 Turnau, before that river falls into the Elbe 2 . 



Joachimsthal, in the circle of Saatz in Bo- 

 hemia, contains mines of silver ; but at what 

 period the workings in them commenced, or 

 how far they had yielded treasure, does not ap- 

 pear from any records now to be found. The 

 galleries have been carried to the prodigious 

 extent of five thousand six hundred fathoms, 

 and some of the shafts are three hundred and 

 fifty fathoms in perpendicular depth 3 . 



1 Briefe iiber mineralogiscbe Gegenstande. 



2 Whatever may have been formerly the case, the sand does 

 not now yield more than one grain of gold in a hundred 

 weight; and though chemists of skill have found nearly that 

 quantity, it is supposed that so much is not regularly to be 

 obtained. There are at present no people searching for gold, 

 nor have there been any for several centuries. See Reus Mine- 

 ralogische Beschreibung des Buntzlauer Kreis in Bohmen. 



3 The silver ores which are found in this and the adjoining 

 district of Catharinaberg are native silver, which is attached 



