Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

Table of figures

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              <s>
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              a great number of deep ditches in rows in the gullies, slopes, and hollows of
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              the mountains. </s>
              <s>Into these ditches the water, whether flowing down from
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              snow melted by the heat of the sun or from rain, collects and carries together
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              with earth and sand, sometimes tin-stone, or, in the case of the Lusitanians,
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              the particles of gold loosened from veins and stringers. </s>
              <s>As soon as the
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              waters of the torrent have all run away, the miners throw the material out
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              of the ditches with iron shovels, and wash it in a common sluice box.</s>
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            <figure number="202"/>
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              <s>A—GULLY. B—DITCH. C—TORRENT. D—SLUICE BOX EMPLOYED BY THE
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              LUSITANIANS.</s>
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              <s>The Poles wash the impure lead from
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              venae dílatatae
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              in a trough ten
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              feet long, three feet wide, and one and one-quarter feet deep. </s>
              <s>It is mixed
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              with moist earth and is covered by a wet and sandy clay, and so
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              first of all the clay, and afterward the ore, is dug out. </s>
              <s>The ore is carried
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              to a stream or river, and thrown into a trough into which water is admitted
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              by a little launder, and the washer standing at the lower end of the trough
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              drags the ore out with a narrow and nearly pointed hoe, whose wooden handle
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              is nearly ten feet long. </s>
              <s>It is washed over again once or twice in the same
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              way and thus made pure. </s>
              <s>Afterward when it has been dried in the sun </s>
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