290 BOOK VIII. 



in the bottoms of the sieves, if they contain any metal the miners put them 

 under the stamps. The larger pieces of broken rock are not separated from 

 the smaller by this method until the men and boys, with five-toothed rakes, 

 have separated them from the rock fragments, the little stones, the 

 coarse and the fine sand and earth, which have been thrown on to the dumps. 

 At Neusohl, in the Carpathians, there are mines where the veins of copper 

 lie in the ridges and peaks of the mountains, and in order to save expense 

 being incurred by a long and difficult transport, along a rough and sometimes 

 very precipitous road, one workman sorts over the dumps which have been 

 thrown out from the mines, and another carries in a wheelbarrow the earth, 

 fine and coarse sand, little stones, broken rock, and even the poorer ore, and 

 overturns the barrow into a long open chute fixed to a steep rock. This 

 chute is held apart by small cleats, and the material slides down a distance of 

 about one hundred and fifty feet into a short box, whose bottom is made of a 

 thick copper plate, full of holes. This box has two handles by which it is 

 shaken to and fro, and at the top there are two bales made of hazel sticks, 

 in which is fixed the iron hook of a rope hung from the branch of a tree or 

 from a wooden beam which projects from an upright post. From time to 

 time a sifter pulls this box and thrusts it violently against the tree or post, 

 by which means the small particles passing through its holes descend down 

 another chute into another short box, in whose bottom there are smaller 

 holes. A second sifter, in like manner, thrusts this box violently against a 

 tree or post, and a second time the smaller particles are received into a third 

 chute, and slide down into a third box, whose bottom has still smaller holes. 

 A third sifter, in like manner, thrusts this box violently against a tree or post, 

 and for the third time the tiny particles fall through the holes upon a table. 

 While the workman is bringing in the barrow, another load which has been 

 sorted from the dump, each sifter withdraws the hooks from his bale 

 and carries away his own box and overturns it, heaping up the broken rock 

 or sand which remains in the bottom of it. As for the tiny particles which 

 have slid down upon the table, the first washer — for there are as many 

 washers as sifters — sweeps them off and in a tub nearly full of water, washes 

 them through a sieve whose holes are smaller than the holes of the third box. 

 When this tub has been filled with the material which has passed through 

 the sieve, he draws out the plug to let the water run away ; then he removes 

 with a shovel that which has settled in the tub and throws it upon the table 

 of a second washer, who washes it in a sieve with smaller holes. The sedi- 

 ment which has this time settled in his tub, he takes out and throws on the 

 table of a third washer, who washes it in a sieve with the smallest holes. 

 The copper concentrates which have settled in the last tub are taken out and 

 smelted ; the sediment which each washer has removed with a limp is 

 washed on a canvas strake. The sifters at Altenberg, in the tin mines of 

 the mountains bordering on Bohemia, use such boxes as I have described, 

 hung from wooden beams. These, however, are a little larger and open in 

 the front, through which opening the broken rock which has not gone through 

 the sieve can be shaken out immediately by thrusting the sieve against its post. 



