Small quantities of quicksilver, sulphur and iron are obtained.
Antimony, quicksilver, stone, marble, slate and potter's clay are also worked, and there are brine springs in the Hellweg and mineral springs at Lippspringe, Oynhausen, &c.
It includes diamonds, the majority of which, however, are of a somewhat yellow colour, gold, quicksilver, cinnabar, copper, iron, tin, antimony, mineral oils, sulphur, rock-salt, marble and coal.
Of other minerals (with the exceptions of coal, iron and salt treated below) nickel and antimony are found in the upper Harz; cobalt in the hilly districts of Hesse and the Saxon Erzgebirge; arsenic in the Riesengebirge; quicksilver in the Sauerland and in the spurs of the Saarbrucken coal hills; graphite in Bavaria; porcelain clay in Saxony and Silesia; amber along the whole Baltic coast; and lime and gypsum in almost all parts.
In the view of some alchemists, the ultimate principles of matter were Aristotle's four elements; the proximate constituents were a " sulphur " and a " mercury," the father and mother of the metals; gold was supposed to have attained to the perfection of its nature by passing in succession through the forms of lead, brass and silver; gold and silver were held to contain very pure red sulphur and white quicksilver, whereas in the other metals these materials were coarser and of a different colour.
