i6o

BOOK VI.

ground, which miners place under the hoppers which are close by the shafthouses, these are usually hollowed out of single trees. Hoppers are generallymade of four planks, so cut on the lower side and joined together that thetop part of the hopper is broader and the bottom part narrower.

I have sufficiently indicated the nature of the miners’ iron tools andtheir vessels. I will now explain their machines, which are of three kinds,that is, hauling machines, ventilating machines, and ladders. By means ofthe hauling machines loads are drawn out of the shafts ; the ventilatingmachines receive the air through their mouths and blow it into shafts ortunnels, for if this is not done, diggers cannot carry on their labour withoutgreat difficulty in breathing ; by the steps of the ladders the miners godown into the shafts and come up again.

Hauling machines are of varied and diverse forms, some of them beingmade with great skill, and if I am not mistaken, they were unknown to theAncients. They have been invented in order that water may be drawn fromthe depths of the earth to which no tunnels reach, and also the excavatedmaterial from shafts which are likewise not connected with a tunnel, or ifso, only with very long ones. Since shafts are not all of the same depth, thereis a great variety among these hauling machines. Of those by which dry loadsare drawn out of the shafts, five sorts are in the most common use, of whichI will now describe the first. Two timbers a little longer than the shaft areplaced beside it, the one in the front of the shaft, the other at the back.Their extreme ends have holes through which stakes, pointed at the bottomlike wedges, are driven deeply into the ground, so that the timbers may remainstationary. Into these timbers are mortised the ends of two cross-timbers,one laid on the right end of the shaft, while the other is far enoughfrom the left end that between it and that end there remains suitablespace for placing the ladders. In the middle of the cross-timbers, posts arefixed and secured with iron keys. In hollows at the top of these poststhick iron sockets hold the ends of the barrel, of which each end projectsbeyond the hollow of the post, and is mortised into the end of anotherpiece of wood a foot and a half long, a palm wide and three digits thick;the other end of these pieces of wood is seven digits wide, and into eachof them is fixed a round handle, likewise a foot and a half long. Awinding-rope is wound around the barrel and fastened to it at themiddle part. The loop at each end of the rope has an iron hook whichis engaged in the bale of a bucket, and so when the windlass revolves bybeing turned by the cranks, a loaded bucket is always being drawn out of theshaft and an empty one is being sent down into it. Two robust men turnthe windlass, each having a wheelbarrow near him, into which he unloadsthe bucket which is drawn up nearest to him ; two buckets generally fill awheelbarrow ; therefore when four buckets have been drawn up, each manruns his own wheelbarrow out of the shed and empties it. Thus it happensthat if shafts are dug deep, a hillock rises around the shed of the windlass.If a vein is not metal-bearing, they pour out the earth and rock withoutdiscriminating; whereas if it is metal-bearing, they preserve these materials,