The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-03-22
SALES FOR THE WEEK BY DAYS.
SALES FOR THE WEEK.
1oIdl -----------. ------------
Value Of sales for the week, S5,347.50.
The Mines of Laurium.

"The mines of Laurium" are still yield
ing silver, lead and zinc says an exchange.
They give employment to 5000 men. and
turn out thousands upon thousands of tons
of ore annually. These are the mines for
which Themistocles got the silver 10 fit out
the feet which whipped the Persians in
the famous naval battle of Solamis, 500
years before the Christian era. And per-
haps the mines were ancient when Themis-
tocles saved Greece with them. 1t is
thought those hustlers of the earliest times,
the Peninicians, got welth out of them.
Mr.. Manatt, the American consul at Athens,
has recently walked through these mines.
Director General Cordella, of one OF the
two big companies operating the NINE now,
has been figuring on what the ancient must
have taken out The silver, he estimates
amounted to $500 tons. That would be IN
the neighborhood of $3.50, 100000. This vast
amount of silver was found with 1,10O,SO4
tons of lead. The lead and silver together
were worth 10000, 600
In the palmy days of Greece these mines
gave work TO 1900 laborers almost ex-
clusively slaves. No fewer than 5000
worked under ground at one time. To
day the earthen lamps, water jars and picks
are found in the narrow passages where
they were thrown down 2,400 years ago.
Slave labor Was cheap enough. A man
worked his own slaves or he hired from
other owners. For those he hired he paid
an obol day. a drachma is about 20 cents.
So the cost OF hiring a slave for twelve
months was about S1l. Slaves could be
bought outright in Athens for from 50 up
ward. Nlcias, the Grecian general, had
1000 slaves hired out in the mines OF Laur-
ium. Nicias was the pious old general who
/
the changes of the moon before the walls
of Syracuse And afterward the survivors
| of his army rotted as prisoners in the Sicil-
| ian stone qurrleS.
There came time when the thousands
! of slaves in these mines of Laurium re-
VOTED against their cultured masters.
| Thucydides tells how 20 900 of them escaped
aud fed to the Spartan camp during the
| Peloponnesian war. The modern ap-
| piiances for mining were unknown in those
days. There were heather blasting nor
| hosting. These enormous masses of ore
were Clipped and then carried out in goat
skins on slaves backs. The dangerous
character of the work was shown in the
contracts for labor. When an owner leased
out his slaves for work in these mines he
stipulated, not that The slaves should be
returned safe and sound at the expiration
OF the contract, but that the same number
should be forthcoming.
Two thousand ancient shafts are found.
They have connecting galleries. under
ground. These galleries open into chambers
80 feet high and $50 feet wide. The mines
belong to the state. Citizens obtained
leases under which they were allowed to
work. These leases could be transferred
or could be Willed like other property.
For his lease the lessee gave up to the state
one twenty fourth of the output. The
revnue thus derived was distributed to
the citizens. 1t amounted to about $195 a
year to each Athenian. But Themistocles
induced his people to suspend the per
capita dividend and to vote the money for
navy. With the navy the Persians were
beaten at Salmis and Greece was saved.
Upon this victory and its results, supple
mented by the continued product of the
mines of Lsurium, Athenian supremacy
was developed. The silver question in
ancient Greece was greater issue than
free coinage is today in the United States
Mining was carried on at Laurlum under
Spartan, Thebau and Macedonian sup
remacy, and even to roman times. Their
came a period of centuries during which
the mines were abandoned. But now 6
new harvest is being cleaned. The slae
and refuse are being washed over according
to modern methoss. New mineral is beiue
taken out from galleries and chamber:
adjacent to those which were WORKED
twenty or thirty centuries ago.