The poet has seen, perhaps in Idumæa or in Midian where mines of copper and gold were wrought by the Egyptians, the various operations here described. Digging or quarrying, driving tunnels horizontally into the hills or sinking shafts in the valleys, letting themselves down by ropes from the edge of a cliff to reach the vein, then, suspended in mid air, hewing at the ore, the miners variously ply their craft. Away in remote gorges of the hills the pits they have dug remain abandoned, forgotten. The long winding passages they make seem to track to the utmost limit the stones of darkness, stones that are black with the richness of the ore. On the earth's surface men till their fields, but the hidden treasures that lie below are more valuable than the harvest of maize or wheat. "_As for the earth, out of it cometh bread; And from beneath it is turned up as by fire. The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, And it hath dust of gold._" The reference to fire as an agent in turning up the earth appears to mark a volcanic district, but sapphires and gold are found either in alluvial soil or associated with gneiss and quartz. Perhaps the fire was that used by the miners to split refractory rock. And the cunning of man is seen in this, that he carries into the very heart of the mountains a path which no vulture or falcon ever saw, which the proud beasts and fierce lions have not trodden. "_He puts forth his hand upon the flinty rock, He overturneth mountains by the roots._" Slowly indeed as compared with modern work of the kind, yet surely, where those earnest toilers desired a way, excavations went on and tunnels were formed with wedge and hammer and pickaxe. The skill of man in providing tools and devising methods, and his patience and assiduity made him master of the very mountains. And when he had found the ore he could extract its precious metal and gems. "_He cutteth out channels among the rocks; And his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the streams that they trickle not; And the hidden thing brings he forth to light._" For washing his ore when it has been crushed he needs supplies of water, and to this end makes long aqueducts. In Idumæa a whole range of reservoirs may still be seen, by means of which even in the dry season the work of gold-washing might be carried on without interruption. No particle of the precious metal escaped the quick eye of the practised miner. And again, if water began to percolate into his shaft or tunnel, he had skill to bind the streams that his search might not be hindered.