Our works for pounding ore, at present, are stamping-mills, which consist of heavy stampers, shod with iron. These stampers are put in motion by a cylinder furnished with cogs, which is driven by a water-wheel, and pound the ore in troughs lined with iron. When the ore subjected to this operation is poor, water is introduced into the troughs, which running through grates in the bottoms of them, carries with it the pounded matter into a gutter, where it becomes purified, and deposits the mud mixed with sand.

One might conjecture that this apparatus was invented soon after the invention of cylinders with cogs; but this was not the case, though I am not able to determine the antiquity of these cylinders. At any rate, it is certain that mortars and sieves were used in Germany, throughout the whole of the fifteenth century, and in France, to which the art of mining was conveyed in general from that country at a late period, they were still employed about the year 1579.* In the oldest times men

2 sheets 8vo. This dissertation may be found also in a valuable cotlection of different pieces by the same author, printed at Helmstadt, 1800, 8vo. ii. p. 263.

* This I prove by the book of François Garrault, printed at Paris 1579, 8vo. entitled: Des mines d'argent trouvées en France, where mention is made only of mortars, mills, and sieves. This Garrault is the first French writer on mining. His work, which is scarce, was printed by Gobet in the first part of the Anciens mineralogistes, de France, Paris 1779, 8vo. where the passage occurs, i. p. 49.

were not acquainted with the art of employing water at mines, in so advantageous a manner as at present. The bellows were worked by men ;* and those aqueducts raised on posts, by which distant water may be made to act on machines, was not yet invented. On this account, remains of ore are found in places where the moderns, in consequence of that indispensable article, water, would not be able to maintain metallurgic works.† According to the researches which I have hitherto had an opportunity to make, our stamping-mills were invented about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and, as appears, in Germany; but I cannot determine with certainty either the name of the inventor or his country. Those who established or introduced the first stamping-works in Saxony and the Harze are only mentioned; and these, as usual, have been considered as the inventors.

In the year 1519, the process of sifting and wet stamping were established in Joachimsthal by Paul Grommestetter, a native of Swarz, named on that account the Schwarzer, whom Melzer praises as an ingenious and active washer; and

* See the history of the bellows, in vol. i.

p. 103.

+ At the Nertschinski works in Siberia, the machinery must be still driven by men or cattle, because all the dams and sluices are destroyed by the frost, and the water converted into ice. Some of the works there, however, have machinery driven by water during the few summer months. See Georgi Beschreibung des Russischen Reichs. Königsberg 1798, 8vo. iii. p. 396.

we are told that he had before introduced the same improvements at Schneeberg. Soon after, that is in 1521, a large stamping-work was erected at Joachimsthal, and the process of washing was begun. A considerable saving was thus made, as a great many metallic particles were before left in the washen sand, which was either thrown away or used as mortar for building.* In the year 1525, Hans Pörtner employed, at Schlackenwalde, the wet method of stamping; whereas before that period the ore there was ground.†

In the Harze this invention was introduced at Wildenmann, by Peter Philip, who was assaymaster there, soon after the works at the Upper Harze were resumed, by Duke Henry the younger, about the year 1524. This we learn from the papers of Herdan Hacke, or Hæcke, who was preacher at Wildenmann in 1572. As far as can be concluded from his imperfect information, the first stamping-work there consisted only of a stamper raised by means of two levers, fixed to the axis of a wheel. The pounded ore was then thrown into a sieve, called in German the sachs, and freed

* Albinus in Meisnischer Bergk-Chronica. Dresden 1590, fol. p. 75 and 76. Mathesius in Joachimscher Chronik. Melzer in Bergkläuftiger Beschreibung von Schneebergk. 1684, 4to. p. 645. + Beschreibung des Fichtelberges, Leipsic 1716, 4to. p. 296.

Sachs or sax in old times denoted a cutting or stabbing instrument, such for example as schaar-sachs, a razor; schreib-sachs, a pen-knife. See Fritschs Wörterbuch, who derives sachs from secare. May not the word raλag, which in Pollux means the sieve used at

from the coarser parts. But as this stamping was performed in the dry manner, it produced so much dust, that the labourers were impeded by it, and the ore on that account could not be properly smelted. The business, however, was not given up; new improvements were made, and soon after Simon Krug and Nicholas Klerer introduced the wet method, and fortunately brought it to perfection.*

It is said in several modern works that wet stamping was invented in 1505, by a Saxon nobleman, nained von Maltitz. This assertion has been so often repeated, that it was known to Gobet,† who adopted it as truth. I have not, however, been able to find the historian on whose testimony it is founded; but it appears by Gauhen's Dictionary of Nobility that Sigismund Maltitz was chief surveyor of forests, at the Erzgebürge, to the electorate of Saxony, in the sixteenth century.

smelting works, be of the same origin; I conjecture also that the coulter of the plow which cuts the earth in a perpendicular direction had the name of sech, and that the words säge and sichel have an affinity to it. If this derivation be right, the High but not the Low German must have of sachs made sech. The latter would have said sas or ses, as it says instead of sechs, ses; instead of wachs, was; instead of flachs, flas; and instead of fuchs, fos. Sech is named also kolter, as in the Netherlands kouter, which words have arisen no doubt from culter.

*Calvör Maschinenwesen, ii. p. 74. des farzes. Clansthal 1754, 4to. ii. p. 115.

Honemann Alterthümer

Anciens mineralogistes de France, i. p. 225.

KITCHEN VEGETABLES.

THE greater part of our kitchen vegetables, that is to say, those plants which, independently of the corn kinds, are cultivated as food in our gardens, are partly indigenous and partly foreign. Of the former many at present grow wild, such as asparagus; but by continued cultivation, through a long series of years, they have produced numerous varieties, which differ as much from the wild plants as the European females from those of New Zealand. Many of our indigenous vegetables are collected for food, but are not reared expressly for that purpose; and these even, in all probability, might be improved by culture. Some indeed are here and there reared in an artificial manner, though we reckon them among our weeds; for example, dandelion, Leontodon taraxacum, the first leaves of which in spring are employed in the northern countries as salad. In some parts of England this plant is sown throughout the whole summer; and its leaves being blanched, it is used in winter as endive. Culture frees many plants from their harsh taste, makes them tender, larger, and more pulpy, and produces them at a season when the wild ones have become unfit for use.

Our foreign kitchen vegetables have, for the most part, been procured from the southern coun