xii The Author's P r e f a c eJ 



number of inhabitants, afford the materials for 

 trade and manufactures : and what we mould 

 principally here confider, the confumption of home 

 and inland commodities, all yielding duties and 

 taxes : by which means at leaft money comes to 

 circulate longer in the country, and not fall into 

 hands, that either hoard it up, or fend it abroad 

 for commodities, we may well be without. And 

 it muft be a (landing proof of the value of mines to 

 a country, when we read of whole cities and towns 

 being built by their means : as it is to them alone, 

 that Friberg, one of the mod confiderable in Sax- 

 ony, owes its rife and prefent flou riming (late, be- 

 ing, no earlier than the thirteenth century, but 

 a poor defpicable village, flail conflicting the 

 mod inconfiderable part of the town at prefent 

 and called the Saxon-town. Schneeberg, which 

 comes next to Friberg ; nay, all the mine- 

 towns in general, owe their rife to mines. And 

 Johan-George-ftadt, founded by the elector John- 

 George, i. is a peculiar inflance, that our coun- 

 try, even in latter times, is as capable as ever of 

 having its mine-works improved, and brought tg 

 a flourifhing Hate. 



4. That the bufinefs of mining has, in our country 

 at leaft, no fmall degree of preheminence above 

 all others of what denomination foever. There 

 is not a gi"eater demand for any one thing than 

 for the produce of mines ; and yet nothing is 

 rarer in any country. No country is without ma- 

 tt ufac- 



