Note 231 — Chapter II · Athens

Binder, Laurion, p. 25 (cp. de Launay in Saglio, Dict. d. Ant. s.v. ferrum, p. 1087), who says this is still the practice in Peru. Smelting was carried on close by the mines, see Ardaillon in Saglio, Dict. d. Ant. s.v. metalla. The sites of the ancient Siphnian mines are to this day called Kaminia (furnaces) and Kapsala (slag?), Bent, J.H.S. VI. pp. 196–7.

Note too that at a still earlier epoch gold from mines, as distinguished from alluvial gold, was known in Egypt as “gold of the mountain,” Breasted, Records Anc. Egypt, IV. 30: so ibid. 28, “electrum of the mountains,” temp. Ramses III.