BOOK I. 5 



expenses and losses, in the end spend the most bitter and most miserable of 

 lives. But persons who hold these views do not perceive how much a learned 

 and experienced miner differs from one ignorant and unskilled in the art. 

 The latter digs out the ore without any careful discrimination, while the 

 former first assays and proves it, and when he finds the veins either too 

 narrow and hard, or too wide and soft, he infers therefrom that these cannot 

 be mined profitably, and so works only the approved ones. What wonder 

 then if we find the incompetent miner suffers loss, while the competent one 

 is rewarded by an abundant return from his mining ? The same thing 

 applies to husbandmen. For those who cultivate land which is alike arid, 

 heavy, and barren, and in which they sow seeds, do not make so great a 

 harvest as those who cultivate a fertile and mellow soil and sow their grain 

 in that. And since by far the greater number of miners are unskilled rather 

 than skilled in the art, it follows that mining is a profitable occupation to 

 very few men, and a source of loss to many more. Therefore the mass of 

 miners who are quite unskilled and ignorant in the knowledge of veins not 

 infrequently lose both time and trouble^". Such men are accustomed for the 

 most part to take to mining, either when through being weighted with the 

 fetters of large and heavy debts, they have abandoned a business, or desiring to 

 change their occupation, have left the reaping-hook and plough ; and so 

 if at any time such a man discovers rich veins or other abounding mining 

 produce, this occurs more by good luck than through any knowledge on his 

 part. We learn from history that mining has brought wealth to many, for 

 from old writings it is well known that prosperous Republics, not a few kings, 

 and many private persons, have made fortunes through mines and their 

 produce. This subject, by the use of many clear and illustrious examples, I 

 have dilated upon and explained in the first Book of my work entitled " De 

 Veteribus et Novis Metallis," from which it is evident that mining is very 

 profitable to those who give it care and attention. 



Again, those who condemn the mining industry say that it is not in the 

 least stable, and they glorify agriculture beyond measure. But I do not see 

 how they can say this with truth, for the silver-mines at Freiberg in Meissen 

 remain still unexhausted after 400 years, and the lead mines of Goslar after 600 

 years. The proof of this can be found in the monuments of history. The 

 gold and silver mines belonging to the communities of Schemnitz and 

 Cremnitz have been worked for 800 years, and these latter are said to be 

 the most ancient privileges of the inhabitants. Some then say the profit 

 from an individual mine is unstable, as if forsooth, the miner is, or ought to 

 be dependent on only one mine, and as if many men do not bear in common 

 their expenses in mining, or as if one experienced in his art does not dig 

 another vein, if fortune does not amply respond to his prayers in the first 

 case. The New Schonberg at Freiberg has remained stable beyond the 

 memory of man^^. 



^"Operant et oleum perdit — " loss of labour and oil." 



^^In Veteribus et Novis Metallis, and Bermannus, Agricola states that the mines of 

 Schemnitz were worked 800 years before that time (1530), or about 750 a.d., and, further. 



