Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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    <archimedes>
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            <p type="caption">
              <s>
                <pb pagenum="312"/>
              lordship of all the dumps ejected from the mines in Meissen to the noble
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              and wise Sigismund Maltitz, father of John, Bishop of Meissen. </s>
              <s>Reject­
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              ing the dry stamps, the large sieve, and the stone mills of Dippolds­
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              walde and Altenberg, in which places are dug the small black stones
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              from which tin is smelted, he invented a machine which could crush the ore
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              wet under iron-shod stamps. </s>
              <s>That is called “wet ore” which is softened by
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              water which flows into the mortar box, and they are sometimes called “wet
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              stamps” because they are drenched by the same water; and on the other hand, the
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              other kinds are called “dry stamps” or “dry ore,” because no water is used
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              to soften the ore when the stamps are crushing. </s>
              <s>But to return to our subject.
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              </s>
              <s>This machine is not dissimilar to the one which crushes the ore with dry
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              iron-shod stamps, but the heads of the wet stamps are larger by half than the
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              heads of the others. </s>
              <s>The mortar-box, which is made of oak or beech timber, is
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              set up in the space between the upright posts; it does not open in front, but
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              at one end, and it is three feet long, three-quarters of a foot wide, and one foot
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              and six digits deep. </s>
              <s>If it has no bottom, it is set up in the same way over a
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              slab of hard, smooth rock placed in the ground, which has been dug down a
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              little. </s>
              <s>The joints are stopped up all round with moss or cloth rags. </s>
              <s>If
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              the mortar has a bottom, then an iron sole-plate, three feet long, three­
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              quarters of a foot wide, and a palm thick, is placed in it. </s>
              <s>In the opening
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              in the end of the mortar there is fixed an iron plate full of holes, in such a
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              way that there is a space of two digits between it and the shoe of the nearest
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              stamp, and the same distance between this screen and the upright post, in
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              an opening through which runs a small but fairly long launder. </s>
              <s>The crushed
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              particles of silver ore flow through this launder with the water into a settling­
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              pit, while the material which settles in the launder is removed with an iron
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              shovel to the nearest planked floor; that material which has settled in the
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              pit is removed with an iron shovel on to another floor. </s>
              <s>Most people make
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              two launders, in order that while the workman empties one of them of the
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              accumulation which has settled in it, a fresh deposit may be settling in the
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              other. </s>
              <s>The water flows in through a small launder at the other end of the
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              mortar that is near the water-wheel which turns the machine. </s>
              <s>The workman
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              throws the ore to be crushed into the mortar in such a way that the pieces,
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              when they are thrown in among the stamps, do not impede the work. </s>
              <s>By
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              this method a silver or gold ore is crushed very fine by the stamps.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>When tin ore is crushed by this kind of iron-shod stamps, as soon as
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              crushing begins, the launder which extends from the screen discharges the
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              water carrying the fine tin-stone and fine sand into a transverse trough,
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              from which the water flows down through the spouts, which pierce the side of
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              the trough, into the one or other of the large buddles set underneath. </s>
              <s>The
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              reason why there are two is that, while the washer empties the one which is
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              filled with fine tin-stone and sand, the material may flow into the other.
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              </s>
              <s>Each buddle is twelve feet long, one cubit deep, and a foot and a half broad.
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              </s>
              <s>The tin-stone which settles in the upper part of the buddles is called the
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              large size; these are frequently stirred with a shovel, in order that the
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              medium sized particles of tin-stone, and the mud mixed with the very fine </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
        </body>
      </text>
    </archimedes>
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