The Metallic Orchard

[tunnels], and veins where ores are mined, and will wait for the right time, he will find that GOD and Nature allow the ores, once they have stood on their "trunk" or "stem" The author uses botanical metaphors, such as Stamm (trunk/stem), to reinforce the idea that minerals grow like plants long enough, to go into decay again; for there he will find large specimens of exhaled or weathered-out ore, called giffelet An archaic term for brittle, crumbling, or "exhausted" mineral matter or drusen A cavity or rock surface lined with crystals; the author views these as the "husks" left behind after the vital spirit of the ore has departed; from these, the spirit of life has departed as a stinking mist, smoke, vapor, and steam, and has moved to another place; it has left its sulfur Likely referring to the alchemical principle of Sulfur, associated with the soul or combustible essence of a substance behind in those drusen; whoever cannot or will not believe this can go down into the ore mines himself, and he will find that everything behaves exactly so.

But the poisonous vapors, or the foul air original German: böse Wetter; literally "bad weather," the traditional term used by miners for dangerous gases like firedamp or chokedamp, when they leave their body, attach themselves as a fatty substance either to the sides of the tunnels, shafts, or veins; they also settle upon the groundwater, or escape to the surface, where they are drawn up by the air and used original Latin-derived: adhibiret for other things.