Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/43

Rh must seem wild and dreary to him who comes out of a magnificent, fertile land, and which can attract us only by the internal contents of its bosom. We were made acquainted with one simple and one complicated piece of machinery, within a short distance of each other; namely, a scythe-smithy and a wire-drawing factory. If one is pleased at the first because it supplies the place of common hands, one cannot sufficiently admire the other; for it works in a higher organic sense, from which understanding and consciousness are scarcely to be separated. In the alum-works we made accurate inquiries about the production and purifying of this so necessary material; and when we saw great heaps of a white, greasy, loose, earthy matter, and asked the use of it, the labourers answered, smiling, that it was the scum thrown up in boiling the alum, and that Herr Stauf had it collected, as he hoped perchance to turn it to some profit. "Is Herr Stauf alive yet?" exclaimed my companion in surprise. They answered in the affirmative, and assured us, that, according to the plan of our journey, we should not pass far from his lonely dwelling.

Our road now led up along the channels by which the alum-water is conducted down, and the principal horizontal works (Stollen), which they call the "Landgrube" and from which the famous Dutweil coals are procured. These, when they are dry, have the blue colour of darkly tarnished steel; and the most beautiful succession of rainbow-tints plays over the surface with every movement. The deep abysses of the coal-levels, however, attracted us so much the less as their contents lay richly poured out around us. We now reached the open mine, in which the roasted alum-scales are steeped in lye; and, soon after, a strange occurrence surprised us, although we had been prepared. We entered into a chasm, and found ourselves in the region of the Burning Mountain. A strong smell of sulphur