Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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              <s>
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              they do not descend into the shafts nor enter the tunnels again before Monday,
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              and in the meantime the poisonous fumes pass away.</s>
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              <s>There are also times when a reckoning has to be made with Orcus,
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              24
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              for some metalliferous localities, though such are rare, spontaneously
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              produce poison and exhale pestilential vapour, as is also the case with some
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              openings in the ore, though these more often contain the noxious fumes.
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              </s>
              <s>In the towns of the plains of Bohemia there are some caverns which,
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              at certain seasons of the year, emit pungent vapours which put out lights
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              and kill the miners if they linger too long in them. </s>
              <s>Pliny, too, has left
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              a record that when wells are sunk, the sulphurous or aluminous vapours
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              which arise kill the well-diggers, and it is a test of this danger if a burning
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              lamp which has been let down is extinguished. </s>
              <s>In such cases a second well
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              is dug to the right or left, as an air-shaft, which draws off these noxious
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              vapours. </s>
              <s>On the plains they construct bellows which draw up these noxious
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              vapours and remedy this evil; these I have described before.</s>
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              <s>Further, sometimes workmen slipping from the ladders into the shafts
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              break their arms, legs, or necks, or fall into the sumps and are drowned;
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              often, indeed, the negligence of the foreman is to blame, for it is his special
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              work both to fix the ladders so firmly to the timbers that they cannot break
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              away, and to cover so securely with planks the sumps at the bottom of the
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              shafts, that the planks cannot be moved nor the men fall into the water;
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              wherefore the foreman must carefully execute his own work. </s>
              <s>Moreover,
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              he must not set the entrance of the shaft-house toward the north wind,
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              lest in winter the ladders freeze with cold, for when this happens the men's
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              hands become stiff and slippery with cold, and cannot perform their office
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              of holding. </s>
              <s>The men, too, must be careful that, even if none of these things
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              happen, they do not fall through their own carelessness.</s>
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              <s>Mountains, too, slide down and men are crushed in their fall and perish.
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              </s>
              <s>In fact, when in olden days Rammelsberg, in Goslar, sank down, so many
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              men were crushed in the ruins that in one day, the records tell us, about
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              400 women were robbed of their husbands. </s>
              <s>And eleven years ago, part
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              of the mountain of Altenberg, which had been excavated, became loose and
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              sank, and suddenly crushed six miners; it also swallowed up a hut and one
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              mother and her little boy. </s>
              <s>But this generally occurs in those mountains
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              which contain
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              venae cumulatae.
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              </s>
              <s> Therefore, miners should leave numerous
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              arches under the mountains which need support, or provide underpinning.
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              </s>
              <s>Falling pieces of rock also injure their limbs, and to prevent this from hap­
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              pening, miners should protect the shafts, tunnels, and drifts.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>The venomous ant which exists in Sardinia is not found in our mines.
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              </s>
              <s>This animal is, as Solinus
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              25
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              writes, very small and like a spider in shape; it
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              is called
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              solífuga,
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              because it shuns (
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              fugít
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              ) the light (
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              solem
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              ). It is very common
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              </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
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