( 22 ) 
By which oftentimes fome of the workmen come up and 
down. The other, which is the ufual way, is at the beginning 
not difficult , the defcent not being much 5 the greatelf trou- 
ble is 5 that in feveral places you cannot (land upright: but 
this holds not long 3 before you come to defcend in earnefl by 
perpendicular Ladders , where the weight of on s body is 
found very fenfible. At the end of each Ladder, there are 
boards a crofs, where we may breath a little. The Ladders 
as was faid, are perpendicular, but being imagined produced 
do not make one Ladder , but feveral' parallel ones. Being 
at the bottom, we faw no more then what we faw before, on- 
ly the place, whence the Mineral came. All the way down, 
and the bottom, where there are feveral lanes cut out in the 
Mountain, is lined and propt with great pieces of Firr-trees, 
as thick as they can be fet. They digg the Mineral with Pick- 
axes, following the veins ’tis for the moil part hard as a 
Hone , but more weighty 5 of a Liver-colour , or that of 
Croats Metaliorum. I hope fhortly to fhew you fome of it. 
There is alfo fome foft Earth, in which you plainly lee the Mer- 
cury in little particles. B elides this, there are oftentimes found 
in the Mines round Hones like Flints, of feveral bignefies, ve- 
ry like thofe Globes of Hair , which I have often feen in Eng- 
land^ taken out of Oxes belly s. There are alfo feveral 
Marcafites and Hones, which feem to have (peeks of Gold in 
them 3 but upon tryal they fay, they find none in them. Thefe 
round Hones are fome of them very ponderous , and well im- 
pregnated with Mercury 5 others, light, having little or none 
in them. The manner of getting the Mercury is this: They 
take of the Earth, brought up in Buckets, and put it into 
a Sive, whofe bottom is made of wires at lb great a diHance, 
that you may put your finger betwixt them : His carried to a 
Bream of running water, and waffl’d as long as any thing will 
pals through the Sive. That Earth which pafleth not, is laid 
alide upon an other heap : that which pafleth, referved in the 
hole, G.in Fig. 1. and taken up again by the fecond Man, and fo 
on, to about ten op twelve lives proportionably Ids. It often 
happens in the firft hole, vr here the fecond Man takes up his 
Earth 
