r, lead, antimony, and iron. The most extensive works are found in
the neighbourhood of the town of Cremnitz and Schemnitz. The veins in
this region obtain the enormous dimensions of from 20 to 200 feet in
width. The extensive forests of oak, pine, and beech which clothe the
hills supply fuel for the numerous smelting works, while water,
carefully collected into reservoirs, moves the required machinery. The
whole of the drainage of the mines is collected in a receptacle 600 feet
below the surface, from whence it is conveyed under a lofty mountain
ridge by a magnificent gallery twelve miles in length.

Norway and Sweden possess extensive mines of iron and copper, as also
silver. The latter country furnishes the best iron in the world, and it
is much used in England for the manufacture of steel.

Passing eastward to Russia, we find the rich mines of the Ural
Mountains, which divide Europe from Asia, and then on to the Altai chain
on the southern frontier of Siberia, we meet with rich mines of gold and
silver, and other valuable metals. On the European side of the Ural
there is a deposit of copper sand-ore, extending over a district of 480
miles in length, by 280 in breadth. The mineral wealth of Asiatic
Russia is far greater. It consists of copper ores; iron cropping out at
the surface, gold and platinum. The Altai Mountains especially produce
silver, and some gold, with lead and copper ores. The silver mines of
this region were worked at a very early period, as is proved by the
discovery of an excavation a thousand feet in length, from which a stone
sphinx was dug up, corroborating a statement of Herodotus that the
Scythians possessed mines of gold and silver, which, according to his
account, were guarded by monsters and griffins. Baron Humboldt supposes
that he referred to the bones of elephants, and other gigantic animals,
discovered at the present day in the steppes between the Ural and Altai
chains.

Crossing the Atlantic to America, we find vast quantities of the
precious metals in the mountains of the Brazils and along the whole
range of the Andes. In the province of Minasgeraes, gold is obtained
from subterranean excavations, as also by washing the surface soil, when
diamonds are also found. Auriferous deposits exist in the deep valleys
among the mountains of Chili, and in Peru and Bolivia are immense veins
of silver ore. High up on the Andes are the mines of Pasco and Potosi;
while in the same reg