Mine. The word does not occur in the Bible, but that mining operations were familiar to the Hebrew people from an early age is evident from many Script- ural allusions. See Metal. A remarkable description of the processes of ore mining occurs in the book of Job (xxviii, 1-11):
Why, [there] exists for silver a vein ;
And a place for gold, [which! they may filter:
Iron from clod can be taken.
And stone will pour forth copper. An end has [one] put to the [subterranean] darkness, And to every recess [Is] he prying [after] The stone of sloom and death-shade.
He has pierced a shaft [down] away from [any] so- journer,
[Where] the [miners] forgotten of foot-[hold]
Have hunt; [far] from man, [and] swung. Earth — from it shall issue [means to procure] bread, Though mider it [its bosom] has been overturned as [by] fire:
VI.— T
A sapphire-place [are] its stones, And gold-clods [are] his [that explores it]. A beaten [path thither]— bird of prey has not known it. Nor hawk's eye scanned it ;
Sous of rampancy [fierce beasts] have not trodden it, Koarer [lion] has not wended over it. Ou the flint he has stretched forth his hand ; He has overturned from [the] root mountains: In the clifi"s channels has he cleft, And every precious [thing] has his eye seen.
From trickling [the adjacent] rivers has he stop- ped, While [the] concealed [thing] he shall bring forth [to] liglit. The following comments on this passage (which may be a later addition of the time of Solomon), as well as the remarks on metallurgy in general, are from Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. See Job, Book of.
It may be fairly inferred from the description that a distinction is made between gold obtained in the man- ner indicated, and that which is foimd in the natural state in the alluvial soil, among the debris washed down by the torrents. This appears to be implied in the ex- pression "the gold they refine," which presujiposes a process by which the pure gold is extracted from the ore, and separated from the silver or copper with which it may have been mixed. What is said of gold may be equally applied to silver, for in almost every allusion to the process of refining the two metals are associated. In the passage of Job which has been quoted, so far as can be made out from the obscurities with which it is beset, the natural order of mining operations is observed in the description. The whole point is obviously con- tained in the contrast, '• Surely there is a source for the silver, and a place for the gold which men refine; but where shall wisdom be foinid, and where is the place of understanding V" No labor is too great for extorting from the eartli its treasures. The shaft is sunk, and the adventurous miner, far from the haunts of men, hangs in mid-air (v, 4): the bowels of the earth — which in the course of nature grows but corn — are overthrown as though wasted by fire. The path which the miner pur- sues in his underground course is unseen by the keen eye of the falcon, nor have the boldest beasts of prey traversed it, but man wins his way through every ob- ; stacle, hews out tunnels in the rock, stops the water from Hooding his mine, and brings to light the precious 1 metals as the reward of his adventure. No description j could be more complete. The poet might have had be- fore him the copper mines of the Sinaitic peninsula. In the Wady Magharah, " the valley of the Cave," are still traces of the Egyptian colony of miners who settled there for the purpose of extracting copper from the free- stone rocks, and left their hieroglyphic inscriptions upon the face of the cliff. That these inscriptions are of great antiquity there can be little doubt, though Lepsius may not be justified in placing them at a date B.C. 4000 (^Letters from Egypt, p. 346, Eng. tr.). ' In the IMagharah tablets, Mr. Drew {Scripture Lands, p. 50, note) "saw the cartouche of Suphis, the builder of the Great Pyramid, and on the stones at Sariibit el-Khadira there are those of kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties." But the most interesting description of this mining col- ony is to be found in a letter to the Athenceum(3ane. i, 1859, No. 1649, p. 747), signed M. A., and dated from " Sarabit el-Khadim, in the desert of Sinai, May, 1859." The writer discovered on the mountain exactly oppo- site the caves of Magharah traces of an ancient fortress, intended, as he conjectures, for the protection of the miners. The hill on which it stands is about 1000 feet high, nearly insulated, and formed of a series of precipi- tous terraces, one above the other, like the steps of the Pyramids. The uppermost of these was entirely sur- rounded by a strong wall, within which were found re- mains of 140 houses, each about tea feet square. There were, besides, the remains of ancient hammers of green porphyry, and reservoirs "so disposed that when one was fuU the surjilus ran into the others, and so in suc- cession, so that they must have had water enough to last for years. The ancient furnaces are still to be seen,