Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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    <archimedes>
      <text>
        <body>
          <chap>
            <p type="main">
              <s>
                <pb pagenum="215"/>
              digging they should make for themselves not only boots of rawhide, but gloves
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              long enough to reach to the elbow, and they should fasten loose veils over their
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              faces; the dust will then neither be drawn through these into their wind­
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              pipes and lungs, nor will it fly into their eyes. </s>
              <s>Not dissimilarly, among the
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              Romans
                <emph type="sup"/>
              22
                <emph.end type="sup"/>
              the makers of vermilion took precautions against breathing its fatal
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              dust.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>Stagnant air, both that which remains in a shaft and that which remains
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              in a tunnel, produces a difficulty in breathing; the remedies for this evil
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              are the ventilating machines which I have explained above. </s>
              <s>There is another
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              illness even more destructive, which soon brings death to men who work
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              in those shafts or levels or tunnels in which the hard rock is broken by fire.
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              </s>
              <s>Here the air is infected with poison, since large and small veins and seams
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              in the rocks exhale some subtle poison from the minerals, which is driven
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              out by the fire, and this poison itself is raised with the smoke not unlike
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                <emph type="italics"/>
              pompholyx,
                <emph.end type="italics"/>
                <emph type="sup"/>
              23
                <emph.end type="sup"/>
              which clings to the upper part of the walls in the works in which
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              ore is smelted. </s>
              <s>If this poison cannot escape from the ground, but falls down
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              into the pools and floats on their surface, it often causes danger, for if at any
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              time the water is disturbed through a stone or anything else, these fumes rise
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              again from the pools and thus overcome the men, by being drawn in with their
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              breath; this is even much worse if the fumes of the fire have not yet all
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              escaped. </s>
              <s>The bodies of living creatures who are infected with this poison
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              generally swell immediately and lose all movement and feeling, and they die
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              without pain; men even in the act of climbing from the shafts by the
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              steps of ladders fall back into the shafts when the poison overtakes them,
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              because their hands do not perform their office, and seem to them to be round
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              and spherical, and likewise their feet. </s>
              <s>If by good fortune the injured
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              ones escape these evils, for a little while they are pale and look like
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              dead men. </s>
              <s>At such times, no one should descend into the mine or into the
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              neighbouring mines, or if he is in them he should come out quickly. </s>
              <s>Prudent
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              and skilled miners burn the piles of wood on Friday, towards evening, and
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              </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
        </body>
      </text>
    </archimedes>
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