Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950
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              <s>It is not my intention to detract anything from the dignity of agri­
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              culture, and that the profits of mining are less stable I will always and readly
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              admit, for the veins do in time cease to yield metals, whereas the fields bring
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              lorth fruits every year. </s>
              <s>But though the business of mining may be loss
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              reliable it is more productive, so that in reckoning up, what is wanting in
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              stability is found to be made up by productiveness. </s>
              <s>Indeed, the yearly
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              profit of a lead mine in comparison with the fruitfulness of the best fields,
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              is three times or at least twice as great. </s>
              <s>How much does the profit from
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              gold or silver mines exceed that earned from agriculture? </s>
              <s>Wherefore truly
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              and shrewdly does Xenophon
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              12
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              write about the Athenian silver mines:
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              “There is land of such a nature that if you sow, it does not yield crops,
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              but if you dig, it nourishes many more than if it had borne fruit.” So let
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              the farmers have for themselves the fruitful fields and cultivate the fertile
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              hills for the sake of their produce; but let them leave to miners the gloomy
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              valleys and sterile mountains, that they may draw forth from these, gens
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              and metals which can buy, not only the crops, but all things that are sold.</s>
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              <s>The critics say further that mining is a perilous occupation to pursue,
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              because the miners are sometimes killed by the pestilential air which they
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              breathe; sometimes their lungs rot away; sometimes the men perish by being
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              crushed in masses of rock; sometimes, falling from the ladders into the
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              shafts, they break their arms, legs, or necks; and it is added there is no com­
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              pensation which should be thought great enough to equalize the extreme
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              dangers to safety and life. </s>
              <s>These occurrences, I confess, are of exceeding
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              gravity, and moreover, fraught with terror and peril, so that I should con­
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              sider that the metals should not be dug up at all, if such things were to happen
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              very frequently to the miners, or if they could not safely guard against such
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              risks by any means. </s>
              <s>Who would not prefer to live rather than to possess
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              all things, even the metals? </s>
              <s>For he who thus perishes possesses nothing,
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              but relinquishes all to his heirs. </s>
              <s>But since things like this rarely happen,
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              and only in so far as workmen are careless, they do not deter miners from
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              carrying on their trade any more than it would deter a carpenter from his,
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              because one of his mates has acted incautiously and lost his life by falling
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              from a high building. </s>
              <s>I have thus answered each argument which critics are
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              wont to put before me when they assert that mining is an undesirable occuppa­
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              tion, because it involves expense with uncertainty of return, because it is
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              changeable, and because it is dangerous to those engaged in it.</s>
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              <s>Now I come to those critics who say that mining is not useful to the
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              rest of mankind because forsooth, gems, metals, and other mineral products
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              are worthless in themselves. </s>
              <s>This admission they try to extort from us,
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              partly by arguments and examples, partly by misrepresentations and abuse of
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              us. </s>
              <s>First, they make use of this argument: “The earth does not conceal
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              and remove from our eyes those things which are useful and necessary to </s>
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