n8 BOOK V. 



into a dish placed underneath to prevent any of the metal from falling to 

 the ground. They break a hard vein loose from the footwall by blows with 

 a hammer upon the first kind of iron tool 13 , all of which are designated by 

 appropriate names, and with the same tools they hew away the hard hanging- 

 wall rock. They hew out the hangingwall rock in advance more frequently, the 

 rock of the footwall more rarely ; and indeed, when the rock of the footwall 

 resists iron tools, the rock of the hangingwall certainly cannot be broken unless 

 it is allowable to shatter it by fire. With regard to the harder veins which are 

 tractable to iron tools, and likewise with regard to the harder and hardest 

 kind of hangingwall rock, they generally attack them with more powerful 

 iron tools, in fact, with the fourth kind of iron tool, which are called by their 

 appropriate names ; but if these are not ready to hand, they use two or 

 three iron tools of the first kind together. As for the hardest kind of metal- 

 bearing vein, which in a measure resists iron tools, if the owners of the 

 neighbouring mines give them permission, they break it with fires. But if 

 these owners refuse them permission, then first of all they hew out the rock of 

 the hangingwall, or of the footwall if it be less hard ; then they place timbers 

 set in hitches in the hanging or footwall, a little above the vein, and from 

 the front and upper part, where the vein is seen to be seamed with small 

 cracks, they drive into one of the little cracks one of the iron tools which 

 I have mentioned ; then in each fracture they place four thin iron 

 blocks, and in order to hold them more firmly, if necessary, they place 

 as many thin iron plates back to back ; next they place thinner iron 

 plates between each two iron blocks, and strike and drive them by 

 turns with hammers, whereby the vein rings with a shrill sound ; and the 

 moment when it begins to be detached from the hangingwall or footwall 

 rock, a tearing sound is heard. As soon as this grows distinct the miners 

 hastily flee away ; then a great crash is heard as the vein is broken and' torn, 

 and falls down. By this method they throw down a portion of a vein weigh- 

 ing a hundred pounds more or less. But if the miners by any other method 

 hew the hardest kind of vein which is rich in metal, there remain certain 

 cone-shaped portions which can be cut out afterward only with difficulty. As 

 for this knob of hard ore, if it is devoid of metal, or if they are not allowed to 

 apply fire to it, they proceed round it by digging to the right or left, because 

 it cannot be broken into by iron wedges without great expense. Meantime, 

 while the workmen are carrying out the task they have undertaken, the 

 depths of the earth often resound with sweet singing, whereby they lighten a 

 toil which is of the severest kind and full of the greatest dangers. 



As I have just said, fire shatters the hardest rocks, but the method of its 

 application is not simple 14 . For if a vein held in the rocks cannot be hewn 



18 The various kinds of iron tools are described in great detail in Book VI. 



"Fire-setting as an aid to breaking rock is of very ancient origin, and moreover it 

 persisted in certain German and Norwegian mines down to the end of the igth century 

 270 years after the first application of explosives to mining. The first specific reference to 

 fire-setting in mining is by Agatharchides (2nd century B.C.) whose works are not extant, 

 but who is quoted by both Diodorus Siculus and Photius, for which statement see note 8, p. 

 279. Pliny (xxxin, 21) says : " Occasionally a kind of silex is met with, which must be 

 " broken with fire and vinegar, or as the tunnels are filled with suffocating fumes and smoke, 



