BOOK VIII. 



269 



melted out, and further, the solidified juices also impede the smelting of the 

 metals and cause loss. The rock which lies contiguous to rich ore should also be 

 broken into small pieces, crushed, and washed, lest any of the mineral should 

 be lost. When, either through ignorance or carelessness, the miners while 

 excavating have mixed the ore with earth or broken rock, the work of sorting 

 the crude metal or the best ore is done not only by men, but also by boys and 

 women. They throw the mixed material upon a long table, beside which they 

 sit for almost the whole day, and they sort out the ore ; when it has been 

 sorted out, they collect it in trays, and when collected they throw it into 

 tubs, which are carried to the works in which the ores are smelted. 



The metal which is dug out in a pure or crude state, to which class belong 

 native silver, silver glance, and gray silver, is placed on a stone by the 

 mine foreman and flattened out by pounding with heavy square hammers. 

 These masses, when they have been thus flattened out like plates, are placed 

 either on the stump of a tree, and cut into pieces by pounding an iron chisel 

 into them with a hammer, or else they are cut with an iron tool similar to a 

 pair of shears. One blade of these shears is three feet long, and is firmly 

 fixed in a stump, and the other blade which cuts the metal is six feet long. 



A — Masses of metal. B — Hammer. C — Chisel. D — Tree stumps. E — Iron tool 



SIMILAR TO A PAIR OF SHEARS. 

 20 



