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BOOK VI.

machines and come up again, that is by inclined shafts which are twisted likea screw and have steps cut in the rock, as I have already described.

It remains for me to speak of the ailments and accidents of miners, and ofthe methods by which they can guard against these, for we should alwaysdevote more care to maintaining our health, that we may freely perform ourbodily functions, than to making profits. Of the illnesses, some affect thejoints, others attack the lungs, some the eyes, and finally some are fatal tomen.

Where water in shafts is abundant and very cold, it frequently injuresthe limbs, for cold is harmful to the sinews. To meet this, miners shouldmake themselves sufficiently high boots of rawhide, which protect theirlegs from the cold water ; the man who does not follow this advice willsuffer much ill-health, especially when he reaches old age. On the otherhand, some mines are so dry that they are entirely devoid of water, and thisdryness causes the workmen even greater harm, for the dust which is stirredand beaten up by digging penetrates into the windpipe and lungs, andproduces difficulty in breathing, and the disease which the Greeks callaaOna. If the dust has corrosive qualities, it eats away the lungs, andimplants consumption in the body ; hence in the mines of the CarpathianMountains women are found who have married seven husbands, all of whomthis terrible consumption has carried off to a premature death. At Altenbergin Meissen there is found in the mines black pompholyx, which eats woundsand ulcers to the bone ; this also corrodes iron, for which reason the keysof their sheds are made of wood. Further, there is a certain kind of cadmia 21which eats away the feet of the workmen when they have become wet, andsimilarly their hands, and injures their lungs and eyes. Therefore, for their

21 This is given in the German translation as kobelt. The kobelt (or cobaltum of Agricola)was probably arsenical-cobalt, a mineral common in the Saxon mines. The origin of theapplication of the word cobalt to a mineral appears to lie in the German word for the gnomesand goblins (kobelts) so universal to Saxon miners’ imaginations,—this word in turn probablybeing derived from the Greek cobalt (mimes). The suffering described above seems to havebeen associated with the malevolence of demons, and later the word for these demons wasattached to this disagreeable ore. A quaint series of mining “ sermons,” by Johann Mathesius,entitled Sarepta oder Bergpostill, Niirnberg, 1562, contains the following passage (p. 154)which bears out this view. We retain the original and varied spelling of cobalt and also addanother view of Mathesius, involving an experience of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre with somemines containing cobalt.

“ Sometimes, however, from dry hard veins a certain black, greenish, grey or ash-“ coloured earth is dug out, often containing good ore, and this mineral being burnt gives strong“ fumes and is extracted like ‘ tutty.’ It is called cadmia fossilis. You miners call it cobelt.“ Germans call the Black Devil and the old Devil’s furies, old and black cobel, who injure people“ and their cattle with their witchcrafts. Now the Devil is a wicked, malicious spirit, who“ shoots his poisoned darts into the hearts of men, as sorcerers and witches shoot at the limbs" of cattle and men, and work much evil and mischief with cobalt or hipomane or horses’“ poison. After quicksilver and rotgultigen ore, are cobalt and wismuth fumes; these are the“ most poisonous of the metals, and with them one can kill flies, mice, cattle, birds, and men.“ So, fresh cobalt and kisswasser (vitriol ?) devour the hands and feet of miners, and the dust" and fumes of cobalt kill many mining people and workpeople who do much work among the“ fumes of the smelters. Whether or not the Devil and his hellish crew gave their name to“ cobelt, or kobelt, nevertheless, cobelt is a poisonous and injurious metal even if it contains“ silver. I find in I. Kings 9, the word Cabul. When Solomon presented twenty towns in“ Galilee to the King of Tyre, Hiram visited them first, and would not have them, and said the" land was well named Cabul as Joshua had christened it. It is certain from Joshua that these