lordship of all the dumps ejected from the mines in Meissen to the noble
and wise Sigismund Maltitz, father of John, Bishop of Meissen. Rejecting the dry stamps, the large sieve, and the stone mills of Dippoldswalde and Altenberg, in which places are dug the small black stones
from which tin is smelted, he invented a machine which could crush the ore
wet under iron-shod stamps. That is called " wet ore " which is softened by
water which flows into the mortar box, and they are sometimes called "wet
stamps" because they are drenched by the same water ; and on the other hand, the
other kinds are called "dry stamps" or "dry ore," because no water is used
to soften the ore when the stamps are crushing. But to return to our subject.
This machine is not dissimilar to the one which crushes the ore with dry
iron-shod stamps, but the heads of the wet stamps are larger by half than the
heads of the others. The mortar-box, which is made of oak or beech timber, is
set up in the space between the upright posts ; it does not open in front, but
at one end, and it is three feet long, three-quarters of a foot wide, and one foot
and six digits deep. If it has no bottom, it is set up in the same way over a
slab of hard, smooth rock placed in the ground, which has been dug down a
little. The joints are stopped up all round with moss or cloth rags. If
the mortar has a bottom, then an iron sole-plate, three feet long, threequarters of a foot wide, and a palm thick, is placed in it. In the opening
in the end of the mortar there is fixed an iron plate full of holes, in such a
way that there is a space of two digits between it and the shoe of the nearest
stamp, and the same distance between this screen and the upright post, in
an opening through which runs a small but fairly long launder. The crushed
particles of silver ore flow through this launder with the water into a settlingpit, while the material which settles in the launder is removed with an iron
shovel to the nearest planked floor ; that material which has settled in the
pit is removed with an iron shovel on to another floor. Most people make
two launders, in order that while the workman empties one of them of the
accumulation which has settled in it, a fresh deposit may be settling in the
other. The water flows in through a small launder at the other end of the
mortar that is near the water-wheel which turns the machine. The workman
throws the ore to be crushed into the mortar in such a way that the pieces,
when they are thrown in among the stamps, do not impede the work. By
this method a silver or gold ore is crushed very fine by the stamps.
When tin ore is crushed by this kind of iron-shod stamps, as soon as
crushing begins, the launder which extends from the screen discharges the
water carrying the fine tin-stone and fine sand into a transverse trough,
from which the water flows down through the spouts, which pierce the side of
the trough, into the one or other of the large buddies set underneath. The
reason why there are two is that, while the washer empties the one which is
filled with fine tin-stone and sand, the material may flow into the other.
Each buddle is twelve feet long, one cubit deep, and a foot and a half broad.
The tin-stone which settles in the upper part of the buddies is called the
large size ; these are frequently stirred with a shovel, in order that the
medium sized particles of tin-stone, and the mud mixed with the very fine
