PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY

BOOK XXXIII

Metals.

I. Our topic now will be metals and the actual resources employed to pay for commodities—resources diligently sought in the bowels of the earth in a variety of ways. In some places, the earth is dug into for riches because life demands gold, silver, silver-gold original: "electrum" — a natural alloy of gold and silver, often resembling amber in color., and copper. In other places, it is dug for luxury, when gems and colors for tinting walls and beams are demanded. In yet other places, it is dug for the sake of rash valor, when the demand is for iron, which is even more prized than gold amidst warfare and slaughter. We trace out all the fibers of the earth and live above the hollows we have made in her, marveling that occasionally she gapes open or begins to tremble—as if, in truth, it were not possible that this could be an expression of the indignation of our holy mother! We penetrate her inner parts and seek for riches in the abode of the spirits of the departed, as though the part where we tread upon her were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile. Amid all this, the smallest object of our searching is for the sake of remedies for illness, for with what fraction of mankind is medicine the object of this delving? Although the earth bestows medicines upon us on her surface, as she bestows corn, bountiful and—