Note note 19, p. 37 — BOOK II.

[19] Agricola's account of this event in De Veteribus et Novis Metallis is as follows (p. 393): "Now veins are not always first disclosed by the hand and labour of man, nor has art always demonstrated them; sometimes they have been disclosed rather by chance or by good fortune. I will explain briefly what has been written upon this matter in history, what miners tell us, and what has occurred in our times. Thus the mines at Goslar are said to have been found in the following way. A certain noble, whose name is not recorded, tied his horse, which was named Ramelus, to the branch of a tree which grew on the mountain. This horse, pawing the earth with its hoofs, which were iron shod, and thus turning it over, uncovered a hidden vein of lead, not unlike the winged Pegasus, who in the legend of the poets opened a spring when he beat the rock with his hoof. So just as that spring is named Hippocrene after that horse, so our ancestors named the mountain Rammelsberg. Whereas the perennial water spring of the poets would long ago have dried up, the vein even to-day exists, and supplies an abundant amount of excellent lead. That a horse can have opened a vein will seem credible to anyone who reflects in how many ways the signs of veins are shown by chance, all of which are explained in my work De Re Metallica. Therefore, here we will believe the story, both because it may happen that a horse may disclose a vein, and because the name of the mountain agrees with the story." Agricola places the discovery of Goslar in the Hartz at prior to 936. See Note 11, p. 5.