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which covers a rock, full of the mofl aiTenical, 
fulphureous, filver, copper, lead, and cobalt ores, 
in Europe, and mod of the veins are near the furface. 
The mines of Frayberg are in low hills near the 
city. I faw them all covered with barley in July. A 
ftranger would not imagine that men were reaping 
corn over hundreds of miners heads, who were 
blowing up veins of ore, arfenick, and brimftone. 
The mines of Clauilhal are in a plain, which, in 
truth, is the fummit of a mountain ; the Dorothy and 
Caroline veins of filver, lead, and copper ore, firetch 
away eight miles to the Wild-Man mountain; the 
finelt meadows and fweetefl grafs are upon thele 
veins, and all their branches near the city : they feed 
nine hundred cows, and two hundred horfes ; they are 
mowed in June, and a fecond crop fprings up, which 
is mowed in Auguft : a multitude of plants grow in 
thefe high meadows, over the mines. 
It is true, I faw mines in the barren naked moun- 
tains and hills : but it is certain that their barrennefs is 
not the effeCt of mineral vapours; but the air, 
moifture, heat, and cold, have more power over the 
furfaces of fome rocks, than of others, to moulder 
the ftone into earth. Such is the high mountain of 
Rameliberg, above Goflar, whofe inhabitants have 
lived by the mines found therein. I crept up this 
fteep rock to its fummit; I found it fplit and cracked 
into millions of fiffures, from one foot to an inch wide ; 
in other places, it was fhivered into fmall rotten 
ftones, which became a receptacle for a few plants, 
grafs, mofs, &c. and, as this decayed flone moulders 
into earth, it will be more abundant in vegetable 
productions ; this may, perhaps, have been the origi- 
H h 2 nal 
