BOOK II. 37 



whatever cause the heat of flame had swallowed up the forests with a frightful 

 crackling from their very roots, and had thoroughly baked the earth with 

 fire, there would run from the boiling veins and collect into the hollows of the 

 grounds a stream of silver and gold, as well as of copper and lead." 18 But 

 yet the poet considers that the veins are not laid bare in the first instance 

 so much by this kind of fire, but rather that all mining had its 

 origin in this. And lastly, some other force may by chance disclose the 

 veins, for a horse, if this tale can be believed, disclosed the lead veins at 

 Goslar by a blow from his hoof 19 . By such methods as these does fortune 

 disclose the veins to us. 



But by skill we can also investigate hidden and concealed veins, by 

 observing in the first place the bubbling waters of springs, which cannot be 

 very far distant from the veins because the source of the water is from 

 them ; secondly, by examining the fragments of the veins which the torrents 

 break off from the earth, for after a long time some of these fragments are 

 again buried in the ground. Fragments of this kind lying about on the 

 ground, if they are rubbed smooth, are a long distance from the veins, 

 because the torrent, which broke them from the vein, polished them while 

 it rolled them a long distance ; but if they are fixed in the ground, or if 

 they are rough, they are nearer to the veins. The soil also should be con- 

 sidered, for this is often the cause of veins being buried more or less deeply 

 under the earth ; in this case the fragments protrude more or less widely 

 apart, and miners are wont to call the veins discovered in this manner 

 " fragmenta." 20 



Further, we search for the veins by observing the hoar-frosts, 

 which whiten all herbage except that growing over the veins, because the 

 veins emit a warm and dry exhalation which hinders the freezing of the 

 moisture, for which reason such plants appear rather wet than whitened by 

 the frost. This may be observed in all cold places before the grass has grown 

 to its full size, as in the months of April and May ; or when the late crop of 



"Lucretius De Rerum Natura v. 1241. 



19 Agricola's account of this event in De Veteribus et Novis Metallis is as follows (p. 

 393) : " Now veins are not always first disclosed by the hand and labour of man, nor has art 

 ' always demonstrated them ; sometimes they have been disclosed rather by chance or by 

 ' good fortune. I will explain briefly what has been written upon this matter in history, 

 ' what miners tell us, and what has occurred in our times. Thus the mines at Goslar are 

 ' said to have been found in the following way. A certain noble, whose name is not recorded, 

 ' tied his horse, which was named Ramelus, to the branch of a tree which grew on the 

 ' mountain. This horse, pawing the earth with its hoofs, which were iron shod, and thus 

 ' turning it over, uncovered a hidden vein of lead, not unlike the winged Pegasus, who in the 

 ' legend of the poets opened a spring when he beat the rock with his hoof. So just as that 

 ' spring is named Hipprocrene after that horse, so our ancestors named the mountain 

 ' Rammelsberg. Whereas the perennial water spring of the poets would long ago have dried 

 ' up, the vein even to-day exists, and supplies an abundant amount of excellent lead. That 

 ' a horse can have opened a vein will seem credible to anyone who reflects in how many ways 

 ' the signs of veins are shown by chance, all of which are explained in my work De Re 

 ' Metallica. Therefore, here we will believe the story, both because it may happen that a 

 ' horse may disclose a vein, and because the name of the mountain agrees with the story." 

 Agricola places the discovery of Goslar in the Hartz at prior to 936. See Note n, p. 5. 



*Fragmenta. The glossary gives " Geschube." This term is denned in the Bergwerks' 

 Lexicon (Chemnitz, 1743, p 250) as the pieces of stone, especially tin-stone, broken from 

 the vein and washed out by the water the croppings. 



