20 BOOK I. 



could make anything that is beautiful and perfect without using metals ? Even 

 if tools of iron or brass were not used, we could not make tools of wood and 

 stone without the help of metal. From all these examples are evident the 

 benefits and advantages derived from metals. We should not have had 

 these at all unless the science of mining and metallurgy had been discovered 

 and handed down to us. Who then does not understand how highly useful 

 they are, nay rather, how necessary to the human race ? In a word, man 

 could not do without the mining industry, nor did Divine Providence will 

 that he should. 



Further, it has been asked whether to work in metals is honourable 

 employment for respectable people or whether it is not degrading and 

 dishonourable. We ourselves count it amongst the honourable arts. For 

 that art, the pursuit of which is unquestionably not impious, nor offensive, 

 nor mean, we may esteem honourable. That this is the nature of the 

 mining profession, inasmuch as it promotes wealth by good and honest 

 methods, we shall show presently. With justice, therefore, we may class 

 it amongst honourable employments. In the first place, the occupation 

 of the miner, which I must be allowed to compare with other methods of 

 acquiring great wealth, is just as noble as that of agriculture; for, as the 

 farmer, sowing his seed in his fields injures no one, however profitable they 

 may prove to him, so the miner digging for his metals, albeit he draws forth 

 great heaps of gold or silver, hurts thereby no mortal man. Certainly these 

 two modes of increasing wealth are in the highest degree both noble and 

 honourable. The booty of the soldier, however, is frequently impious, 

 because in the fury of the fighting he seizes all goods, sacred as well as 

 profane. The most just king may have to declare war on cruel tyrants, 

 but in the course of it wicked men cannot lose their wealth and possessions 

 without dragging into the same calamity innocent and poor people, old 

 men, matrons, maidens, and orphans. But the miner is able to accumu- 

 late great riches in a short time, without using any violence, fraud, or 

 malice. That old saying is, therefore, not always true that " Every rich 

 man is either wicked himself, or is the heir to wickedness." 



Some, however, who contend against us, censure and attack miners by 

 saying that they and their children must needs fall into penury after a short 

 time, because they have heaped up riches by improper means. According 

 to them nothing is truer than the saying of the poet Naevius : 

 " 111 gotten gains in ill fashion slip away." 



The following are some of the wicked and sinful methods by which 

 they say men obtain riches from mining. When a prospect of obtaining 

 metals shows itself in a mine, either the ruler or magistrate drives out the 

 rightful owners of the mines from possession, or a shrewd and cunning 

 neighbour perhaps brings a law-suit against the old possessors in order to 

 rob them of some part of their property. Or the mine superintendent imposes 

 on the owners such a heavy contribution on shares, that if they cannot pay, 

 or will not, they lose their rights of possession ; while the superintendent, 

 contrary to all that is right, seizes upon all that they have lost. Or, 



