The skill of the artist not seldom added an inestimable value to the intrinsic worth of an embossed or chiselled silver vase, and Pliny mentions several works of this kind which enjoyed a world-wide celebrity.
The most ancient silver mines of which we have any historical account were situated in the mountainous parts of Chaldæa and in Spain. With the development of the Grecian States, Eastern Europe also began to furnish its contingent. Silver mines were discovered and worked in the Pangæan Mountains, between Macedonia and Thrace, in the islands of Siphnos and Cyprus. Athens derived a considerable part of its revenue from the mines of Laurium in Attica. At first the profits derived from this source were distributed among the citizens, until Themistocles persuaded the general assembly of the people to devote them to the construction of ships of war. The battle of Salamis was won by the galleys built with the money thus obtained, so that the silver mines of Laurium have been the means of adding some of its brightest pages to the history of Ancient Greece.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the exhausted or neglected mines of the East, and of the Iberian peninsula, ceased to be the sources from which silver flowed over the world.
The riches amassed during ages of civilisation were now scattered among barbarous hordes, or buried in the ruins of cities destroyed by fire; and as no new influx replaced the losses caused by accident or the slow wear of time, the precious metals gradually became more rare and of increasing value, until Germany began to open a new era in mining history, and for a time to take the lead among the silver-producing countries of the globe. The first discovery of this metal in Bohemia dates back as far as the seventh century; and in the tenth the Rammelsberg in the Hartz Mountains began to yield its still unexhausted treasures. In the twelfth century the silver mines of Saxony and Hungary were discovered, and at a much later period those of Kongsberg in Norway.
Many of these deposits are remarkable for the richness of their ores, and for the large masses of native or crystallised silver which they have sometimes yielded. From the mine of Himmelsfürst, near Freiberg in Saxony, lumps or nuggets weighing above a hundred pounds have more than once been extracted. The largest single block ever known was discovered at Schneeberg, in the Saxon Erzgebirge, in the year 1477. It consisted of silver-glance and native silver, and measured no less than seven yards in length and three and a half in width. On hearing of this magnificent prize, Duke Albrecht of Saxony visited the mine, where he eat his dinner from the block. Agricola Bermannus relates that, during the repast, he exclaimed, ‘Frederick is a wealthy and powerful emperor, but he has never dined from a table such as this.’ The subsequent smelting of this wonderful mass produced 40,000 pounds of solid silver.
Large nuggets of solid silver have likewise been found at Kongsberg. A block weighing 560 pounds, which was discovered in 1666, is still preserved as a curiosity in the Copenhagen Museum; and as a convincing proof that the ancient riches of these northern mines are not yet exhausted, a still larger block, weighing 750 pounds, was disinterred as late as the year 1834.
Though native silver is found in many localities, our chief supply of the precious metal is derived from the ores in which it is found combined with other substances, such as silver-glance (sulphuret of silver); antimonial silver; red-silver (sulphuret of silver and antimony); horn silver (chloride of silver), &c. A considerable quantity is likewise obtained as an accessory product from the lead mines, by separating it from the galena or lead-glance, which usually contains a small percentage of silver.
At present the mines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which in the year 1851 produced 122,950 marks of silver, are the richest in Europe. In Bohemia the mines of Birkenberg, near Przibram, yield on an average 40,000 marks a year, considerably more than the celebrated mine of Schemnitz in Hungary, which in the year 1854 produced 26,064 marks.
Prussia obtains from her mines in the Hartz Mountains in Nassau and the county of Mansfeld about 100,000 marks; and the kingdom of Saxony, which, in proportion to its small extent, holds the first rank among the silver-producing countries of Europe, produces annually about 53,000 marks. In Great Britain, silver is accessorily obtained from the lead mines, to an amount of about 80,000 marks per annum. France produces 26,800 marks, Sweden and Norway 6,000 marks, and Italy 4,500; while Spain, which in ancient times enriched Tyre and Carthage with the rich produce of her silver mines, yields at present but an insignificant quantity.
On adding together the various sums above mentioned, we find that, exclusively of the Russian Empire, which obtains the greater part of its silver (about 65,000 marks a year) from the Altai Mountains in Siberia, the whole annual production of Europe may be estimated at about 400,000 marks.