[Pg 214][21] This is given in the German translation as kobelt. The kobelt (or cobaltum of Agricola) was probably arsenical-cobalt, a mineral common in the Saxon mines. The origin of the application of the word cobalt to a mineral appears to lie in the German word for the gnomes and goblins (kobelts) so universal to Saxon miners' imaginations,—this word in turn probably being derived from the Greek cobali (mimes). The suffering described above seems to have been associated with the malevolence of demons, and later the word for these demons was attached to this disagreeable ore. A quaint series of mining "sermons," by Johann Mathesius, entitled Sarepta oder Bergpostill, Nürnberg, 1562, contains the following passage (p. 154) which bears out this view. We retain the original and varied spelling of cobalt and also add another view of Mathesius, involving an experience of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre with some mines containing cobalt.
"Sometimes, however, from dry hard veins a certain black, greenish, grey or ash-coloured earth is dug out, often containing good ore, and this mineral being burnt gives strong fumes and is extracted like 'tutty.' It is called cadmia fossilis. You miners call it cobelt. Germans call the Black Devil and the old Devil's furies, old and black cobel, who injure people and their cattle with their witchcrafts. Now the Devil is a wicked, malicious spirit, who shoots his poisoned darts into the hearts of men, as sorcerers and witches shoot at the limbs of cattle and men, and work much evil and mischief with cobalt or hipomane or horses' poison. After quicksilver and rotgültigen ore, are cobalt and wismuth fumes; these are the most poisonous of the metals, and with them one can kill flies, mice, cattle, birds, and men. So, fresh cobalt and kisswasser (vitriol?) devour the hands and feet of miners, and the dust and fumes of cobalt kill many mining people and workpeople who do much work among the fumes of the smelters. Whether or not the Devil and his hellish crew gave their name to cobelt, or kobelt, nevertheless, cobelt is a poisonous and injurious metal even if it contains silver. I find in I. Kings 9, the word Cabul. When Solomon presented twenty towns in Galilee to the King of Tyre, Hiram visited them first, and would not have them, and said the land was well named Cabul as Joshua had christened it. It is certain from Joshua that these [Pg 215]twenty towns lay in the Kingdom of Aser, not far from our Sarepta, and that there had been iron and copper mines there, as Moses says in another place. Inasmuch, then, as these twenty places were mining towns, and cobelt is a metal, it appears quite likely that the mineral took its name from the land of Cabul. History and circumstances bear out the theory that Hiram was an excellent and experienced miner, who obtained much gold from Ophir, with which he honoured Solomon. Therefore, the Great King wished to show his gratitude to his good neighbour by honouring a miner with mining towns. But because the King of Tyre was skilled in mines, he first inspected the new mines, and saw that they only produced poor metal and much wild cobelt ore, therefore he preferred to find his gold by digging the gold and silver in India rather than by getting it by the cobelt veins and ore. For truly, cobelt ores are injurious, and are usually so embedded in other ore that they rob them in the fire and consume (madtet und frist) much lead before the silver is extracted, and when this happens it is especially speysig. Therefore Hiram made a good reckoning as to the mines and would not undertake all the expense of working and smelting, and so returned Solomon the twenty towns."
[22] Pliny (XXXIII, 40). "Those employed in the works preparing vermilion, cover their faces with a bladder-skin, that they may not inhale the pernicious powder, yet they can see through the skin."
[23] Pompholyx was a furnace deposit, usually mostly zinc oxide, but often containing arsenical oxide, and to this latter quality this reference probably applies. The symptoms mentioned later in the text amply indicate arsenical poisoning, of which a sort of spherical effect on the hands is characteristic. See also note on p. [112] for discussion of "corrosive" cadmia; further information on pompholyx is given in [Note 26, p. 394].
[Pg 216][24] Orcus, the god of the infernal regions,—otherwise Pluto.
[25] Caius Julius Solinus was an unreliable Roman Grammarian of the 3rd Century. There is much difference of opinion as to the precise animal meant by solifuga. The word is variously spelled solipugus, solpugus, solipuga, solipunga, etc., and is mentioned by Pliny (VIII., 43), and other ancient authors all apparently meaning a venomous insect, either an ant or a spider. The term in later times indicated a scorpion.
[Pg 217][26] The presence of demons or gnomes in the mines was so general a belief that Agricola fully accepted it. This is more remarkable, in view of our author's very general scepticism regarding the supernatural. He, however, does not classify them all as bad—some being distinctly helpful. The description of gnomes of kindly intent, which is contained in the last paragraph in De Animantibus is of interest:—
"Then there are the gentle kind which the Germans as well as the Greeks call cobalos, because they mimic men. They appear to laugh with glee and pretend to do much, but really do nothing. They are called little miners, because of their dwarfish stature, which is about two feet. They are venerable looking and are clothed like miners in a filleted garment with a leather apron about their loins. This kind does not often trouble the miners, but they idle about in the shafts and tunnels and really do nothing, although they pretend to be busy in all kinds of labour, sometimes digging ore, and sometimes putting into buckets that which has been dug. Sometimes they throw pebbles at the workmen, but they rarely injure them unless the workmen first ridicule or curse them. They are not very dissimilar to Goblins, which occasionally appear to men when they go to or from their day's work, or when they attend their cattle. Because they generally appear benign to men, the Germans call them guteli. Those called trulli, which take the form of women as well as men, actually enter the service of some people, especially the Suions. The mining gnomes are especially active in the workings where metal has already been found, or where there are hopes of discovering it, because of which they do not discourage the miners, but on the contrary stimulate them and cause them to labour more vigorously."
The German miners were not alone in such beliefs, for miners generally accepted them—even to-day the faith in "knockers" has not entirely disappeared from Cornwall. Neither the sea nor the forest so lends itself to the substantiation of the supernatural as does the mine. The dead darkness, in which the miners' lamps serve only to distort every shape, the uncanny noises of restless rocks whose support has been undermined, the approach of danger and death without warning, the sudden vanishing or discovery of good fortune, all yield a thousand corroborations to minds long steeped in ignorance and prepared for the miraculous through religious teaching.
[27] The Plains of Laurentius extend from the mouth of the Tiber southward—say twenty miles south of Rome. What Agricola's authority was for silver mines in this region we cannot discover. This may, however, refer to the lead-silver district of the Attic Peninsula, Laurion being sometimes Latinized as Laurium or Laurius.