Page:De re metallica (1912).djvu/130

88 then is the shape of the meets, varying in accordance with the different kinds of veins.

Now tunnels are of two sorts, one kind having no right of property, the other kind having some limited right. For when a miner in some particular locality is unable to open a vein on account of a great quantity of water, he runs a wide ditch, open at the top and three feet deep, starting on the slope and running up to the place where the vein is found. Through it the water flows off, so that the place is made dry and fit for digging. But if it is not sufficiently dried by this open ditch, or if a shaft which he has now for the first time begun to sink is suffering from overmuch water, he goes to the Bergmeister and asks that official to give him the right for a tunnel. Having obtained leave, he drives the tunnel, and into its drains all the water is diverted, so that the place or shaft is made fit for digging. If it is not seven fathoms from the surface of the earth to the bottom of this kind of tunnel, the owner possesses no rights except this one : namely, that the owners of the mines, from whose leases the owner of the tunnel extracts gold or silver, themselves pay him the sum he expends within their meer in driving the tunnel through it.

To a depth or height of three and a half fathoms above and below the mouth of the tunnel, no one is allowed to begin another tunnel. The reason for this is that this kind of a tunnel is liable to be changed into the other kind which has a complete right of property, when it drains the meers to a depth of seven fathoms, or to ten, according as the old custom in each place acquires the force of law. In such case this second kind of tunnel has the following right ; in the first place, whatever metal the owner, or company owning it, finds in any meer through which it is driven, all belongs to the tunnel owner within a height or depth of one and a quarter fathoms. In the years which are not long passed, the owner of a tunnel possessed all the metal which a miner standing at the bottom of the tunnel touched with a bar, whose handle did not exceed the customary length ; but nowadays a certain prescribed height and width is allowed to the owner of the tunnel, lest the owners of the mines be damaged, if the length of the bar be longer than usual. Further, every metal-yielding mine which is drained and supplied with ventilation by a tunnel, is taxed in the proportion of one- ninth for the benefit of the owner of the tunnel. But if several tunnels of this kind are driven through one mining area which is yielding metals, and all drain it and supply it with ventilation, then of the metal which is dug out from above the bottom of each tunnel, one-ninth is given to the owner of that tunnel ; of that which is dug out below the bottom of each tunnel, one-ninth is in each case given to the owner of the tunnel which follows next in order below. But if the lower tunnel does not yet drain the shaft of that meer nor supply it with ventilation, then of the metal which is dug out below the bottom of the higher tunnel, one-ninth part is given to the owner of such upper tunnel. Moreover, no one tunnel deprives another of its right to one-ninth part, unless it be a lower one, from the bottom of which to the bottom of the one above must not be less than seven or ten fathoms,