Page:De re metallica (1912).djvu/195

Rh The iron block is six digits in length and width; at the upper end it is two digits thick, and at the bottom a digit and a half. The iron plate is the same length and width as the iron block, but it is very thin. All of these, as I explained in the last book, are used when the hardest kind of veins are hewn out. Wedges, locks, and plates, are likewise made larger or smaller.



Hammers are of two kinds, the smaller ones the miners hold in one hand, and the larger ones they hold with both hands. The former, because of their size and use, are of three sorts. With the smallest, that is to say, the lightest, they strike the second "iron tool;" with the intermediate one the first "iron tool;" and with the largest the third "iron tool"; this one is two digits wide and thick. Of the larger sort of hammers there are two kinds; with the smaller they strike the fourth "iron tool;" with the larger they drive the wedges into the cracks; the former are three, and the latter five digits wide and thick, and a foot long. All swell out in their middle, in which there is an eye for a handle, but in most cases the handles are somewhat light, in order that the workmen may be able to strike more powerful blows by the hammer's full weight being thus concentrated.