CHAP. X.

MIDDLE AGES.

249

Rothhausberg, three centuries ago, the valleysswarmed with inhabitants depending on themines of gold ; but within the last century thedecline in the product- has been great. The netprofit to the archbishop about 177^ was nearfour thousand pounds yearly, but from 1795 to *1800 scarcely six hundred pounds. On anaverage of twenty-two years, from I778 to 1800 ,the produce was thirty-five pounds of gold andthree hundred and forty pounds of silver. Thesemines in ancient times had received the title ofthe “Throne of Pluto.” If they deserved thatname three hundred years ago, the produce musthave been much greater, or the ideas of thosewho conferred it must have been of a very con-tracted kind with respect to mineral wealth 1 .

If we may trust to an author who visited thisdistrict in 1784 , the Romans must have ori-ginally worked these mines, and having sufferedthem to go to decay, they were again put inactivity. Hacquet says 2 , that in the miningarchives he found this passage, “ AurifodinceRomanorum in campo humido versus septentrio-nem per rnultos annos desertce jacuere; anno 719iterum coeptce sunt ”

The discovery of America and of the mines itcontained seems to have kindled a most vehe-ment passion for exploring the bowels of the

Vierthaler, vol. i. p. 239.

2 Hacquet, p. 112.