CHAP. X. 



MIDDLE AGES. 253 



beginning about 1320 or 1330, the mines of 

 Schneeberg are said to have yielded so large a 

 portion of silver, that the tithes on it amounted 

 in thirty years to 324,000 quintals. If so, the 

 produce must have been at the rate of about 

 300,000 sterling annually. These mines must 

 however have been exhausted long ago, as no 

 appearance or trace of them is now in existence, 

 and the spot where they are said to have been 

 worked is covered with corn-fields and vine- 

 yards l . 



There is no part of the world in which the 

 operations of mining are conducted with more 

 skill, economy, and industry, than in Saxony. 

 The annual produce of the precious metals, taken 

 on an average of late years, cannot be estimated 

 higher than about four hundred thousand ounces 

 of silver, and a few ounces of gold 2 . The work 

 affords employment to about fifty or sixty thou- 

 sand persons; but the most important of the 

 products are lead, copper, cobalt, iron, manga- 

 nese, and fossil coal. There were formerly gold 

 washings in the streams, and gold was found in 

 the small brooks that run into the Mulda, and 

 in that river itself; but those operations have 

 ceased long ago 3 . 



The mines in the Hartz forest in Germany, Hanover. 



1 Putter's Reichsgeschichte in ihrem Hauptfaden, page 380. 



2 Hassel's Erdebeschreibung. Vol. iv. p. 337. 



3 Mineralogische Geschcchte des Erzegebirges. 



