266 MINING IN THE CHAP. x. 



bably continued at work between the period to 

 which that notice refers, and that when the Ma- 

 hometans from Asia and Africa first gained a 

 footing in Europe. A series of wars must have 

 impeded the operations till after the defeat and 

 capture of Gelimer, the last king of the Vandal 

 race. A peace was concluded then under the 

 sanction of the Greek emperor, who appointed 

 praetorian prefects during the space of near one 

 hundred and seventy years. This state of tran- 

 quillity afforded occasion for renewing the work 

 of mining, and for acquiring and accumulating 

 a store of the precious metals of sufficient im- 

 portance to form an object worthy of military 

 attack ; and we accordingly find that, " the 

 Arabs, on their way from Africa to the invasion 

 of Spain, landed in Sardinia, and there seized 

 upon large treasures of gold and silver 1 ." 

 Spain and We have already taken notice of the mines of 



Portugal. 



Spain and of their produce in remote ages, 

 when their riches were extracted in succession 

 by the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and the 

 Romans. With the decline of the power of the 

 latter people, the productiveness of the mines of 



have had the effect of checking the efforts of France in that 

 kind of industry, as they evidently had in the other parts of 

 the ancient continent. 



1 See Cardonne, Histoire de 1'Afrique et de 1'Espagne sous 

 la Domination des Arabes, vol. i. p. 103. Paris, edit. ] 765. 



