BOOK IV. 87 



Elsewhere every meer, whether a head-meer or other meer, comprises 

 forty-two fathoms in width and as many in length. 



In other places the Bergmeister gives the owner or company all of some 

 locality defined by rivers or little valleys as boundaries. But the boundaries 

 of every such area of whatsoever shape it be, descend vertically into the 

 earth; so the owner of that area has a right over that part of any vena 

 dilatata which lies beneath the first one, just as the owner of the meer on 

 a vena profunda has a right over so great a part of all other venae profundae 

 as lies within the boundaries of his meer ; for just as wherever one vena 

 profunda is found, another is found not far away, so wherever one vena 

 dilatata is found, others are found beneath it. 



Finally, the Bergmeister divides vena cumulata areas in different ways, 

 for in some localities the head-meer is composed of three measures, doubled 

 in such a way that it is fourteen fathoms wide and twenty-one long ; and 

 every other meer consists of two measures doubled, and is square, that is, 

 fourteen fathoms wide and as many long. In some places the head-meer 

 is composed of three single measures, and its width is seven fathoms and 

 its length twenty-one, which two numbers multiplied together make one 

 hundred and forty-seven square fathoms. 



XXI 



CXLVII 



XXI 



SHAPE OF A HEAD-MEER. 



Each other meer consists of one double measure. In some places the 

 head-meer is given the shape of a double measure, and every other meer that 

 of a single measure. Lastly, in other places the owner or a company is given 

 a right over some complete specified locality bounded by little streams, 

 valleys, or other limits. Furthermore, all meers on venae cumulatae, as in 

 the case of dilatatae, descend vertically into the depths of the earth, and 

 each meer has the boundaries so determined as to prevent disputes arising 

 between the owners of neighbouring mines. 



The boundary marks in use among miners formerly consisted only of 

 stones, and from this their name was derived, for now the marks of a 

 boundary are called " boundary stones." To-day a row of posts, made either 

 of oak or pine, and strengthened at the top with iron rings to prevent them 

 from being damaged, is fixed beside the boundary stones to make them 

 more conspicuous. By this method in former times the boundaries of the 

 fields were marked by stones or posts, not only as written of in the book " De 

 Limitibus Agrorum," 1 but also as testified to by the songs of the poets. Such 



7 ?De Limitibus et de Re Agraria of Sextus Julius Frontinus (about 50-90 A.D.) 



