272 



BOOK VIII. 



are protected with long gloves, to prevent them from being injured by the 

 chips which fly away from the fragments. 



In that district of Greater Germany which is called Westphalia and in 

 that district of Lower Germany which is named Eifel, the broken ore which 

 has been burned, is thrown by the workmen into a round area paved with the 

 hardest stones, and the fragments are pounded up with iron tools, which are 

 very much like hammers in shape and are used like threshing sledges. This 

 tool is a foot long, a palm wide, and a digit thick, and has an opening in the 

 middle just as hammers have, in which is fixed a wooden handle of no great 

 thickness, but up to three and a half feet long, in order that the workmen 

 can pound the ore with greater force by reason of its weight falling from a 

 greater height. They strike and pound with the broad side of the tool, in the 

 same way as corn is pounded out on a threshing floor with the threshing 

 sledges, although the latter are made of wood and are smooth and fixed to 

 poles. When the ore has been broken into small pieces, they sweep it 

 together with brooms and remove it to the works, where it is washed 



A — Are.\ paved with stones. B 

 D — Iron tool. E — Its handle. 



-Broken ore. C — Area covered v^fiTH broken ore. 

 F— Broom. G— Short strake. H — Wooden hoe. 



