MINERALOGY. f3 



eternally clad in a wretched ; habituated to a coarse 



and sparing diet ; lodged in wretched huts ; and unceasingly 

 exposed to the inclemencies of the weather in climes of un- 

 usual rigour: — men, I say, of this description, are stiled pro- 

 digals, if they celebrate their saint's day with the harp and 

 the guittar, or put on decent clothes when they pay a visit to 

 the capital ! The times are past, when the flourishing and 

 adventurous miner was wont to stake a bar of silver, of the 

 value of a hundred marks, on the hazard of a die; and when 

 the simple overseer entered the mine with a flute and violins. 

 The passions which in a city absorb a capital, are gratified in 

 a mine by a sack of potatoes, and a jacket of English baize." 



REPLY OP THICIO ANTROPOPHOBO. 



" I do not know whether I ought to announce myself by 

 saying, / kave the honour to be a miner, or whether I should 

 pronounce, with all humility, lam a miner, craving your par- 

 don. By the diff'erent degrees of estimation in which the world 

 holds those of my profession, it would appear that the two 

 phrases are equally appropriate. Not an opulent merchant is 

 to be found who does not speak of us with the utmost con- 

 tempt. The poor envy our lot, and the prospedls which lie 

 before us. The man of letters treats us as uncouth rustics. 

 We are flattered by the courtier, and by the ladies. In Europe 

 we are considered as the arbiters of the riches of the earth ; 

 while in America we are regarded as a species similar to that 

 of the negroes at the mint, who sweat and grow old in coining 



* A kind of covering, borrowed from the ancient Indians, which will be more 

 particularly described hereafter. 



L for 



