means; in others the ore is
roasted, in order to throw off the sulphur, arsenic, and other volatile
matters, which are separately collected and form no inconsiderable
portion of the valuable produce of the mine. These roastings again are
smelted with a variety of fluxes, and in different states of
purification, until they are ready for refining.

Here are roasting furnaces, dull and black; huge brick tubes with swollen
ends; others built in, and ready for ignition. Everywhere, we see pigs
of lead, sometimes lying about in reckless confusion, at others, neatly
packed in square stacks. Now, they bring us to a huge circular oven,
with at least half-a-dozen firmly closed iron doors, and as many glowing
caves; and a swarthy man, armed with an iron rake, swinging open one of
the iron doors with a ring and a clatter, we look in upon a small lake of
molten silver, fuming, and steaming, and bubbling. The iron rake is
thrust in, and scrapes off the crumbling crust--the oxide of lead, which
has formed upon its surface. The silver fumes and flashes, and a white
vapour swims in the air. The swarthy man swings the iron door to with a
clang, takes us by the arm, and bids us look through into a dark cavity,
and watch the white drops which fall at intervals like tiny stars from
above. This is the quicksilver evaporated from the heated silver in the
furnace, which passes through the chimney into a kind of still, and is
restored to its original condition.

And what is the result of all this skill and labour? We find that the
average produce of the Saxon mines is from three to four ounces of silver
to the hundred pounds' weight of ore; and that the mines about Freiberg
yield annually nearly four hundred and fifty thousand ounces of silver.
We find further that the total mines of the Erzgebirge-Kreis--"circle of
ore mountains"--of which those of Freiberg form a portion, produce a
total of seven hundred and twenty thousand ounces of silver every year;
besides from four hundred to five hundred tons of lead, one hundred and
forty tons of tin, about thirty tons of copper, from three thousand five
hundred to four thousand tons of iron, and six hundred tons of cobalt.
They are rich also in arsenic, brimstone, and vitriol, and contain, in no
inconsiderable quantities, quicksilver, antimony, calamites, bismuth, and
manganese. Even precious stones are not wanting; garnets, topazes,
tourmalines, amethysts, beryls, jaspers, and chalcedonies h