182 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS METALS, &c.
their
keepers by speech, or by motives of humanity. The ground containing the
gold they first heat with long-conÂtinued fire, and so render full of
fissures, before they apply manual labour to it ; but the rock that is
soft and capable of yielding to moderate exertion is cut down with the
tools stonecutters use by myriads of these poor wretches. The entire
operation is directed by the engineer, who looks out for the proper
stone, and marks it off for the labourers. Of those appointed to this
miserable task, such as are of the strongest make break down the
marble-like rock with iron pickaxes, applying no art to their labour,
but mere brute strength, and thus cut galleries, running not in a
straight line, but guided by the direction of the white veins. These
men, in consequence of the crooked course of the galleries, work in
darkness, and carry therefore lamps ingeniously fastened upon their
foreheads ; and frequently changing their posture, according to the
arrangement of the veins, they break down and bring to the floor the
fragments of the cut rock, doing this under the lash and cruelty of an
overseer. Meanwhile the boys, creeping into the passages, throw up,
with much toil, the broken mineral as it falls little by little, and
carry it up into the open air at the mine's mouth. Here those above
thirty years old receive from them a fixed measure of the broken ore,
and pound it in stone mortars with iron pestles, until they reduce it
to the size of a vetch. From these the granulated ore is taken by the
women and the older men, who have many hand-mills set in a row, and,
standing two or three together at the handle, they grind the measure
given to them as fine as flour.
"
Last of all, the skilled workmen receive the ore ground fine, and
complete the operation. They have a board placed somewhat sloping, on
which they throw a small quantity of the dust, and pouring water over
it they rub
