| Book Name |
De Re Metallica |
| Author |
Agricola |
| Published |
1556 |
|
Read More About Agricola Books
Agricola.De Re Metallica.
Agricola. Textbook of Mineralogy.
|
Georgius Agricola (Georg Bauer) born in Glauchau, in the province of Saxony in what is now Germany, Agricola studied classics at Leipzig University, taught Latin and Greek for a few years, and then in 1522 began to study medicine, first at Leipzig and then at Bologna and Padua in Italy. He took his degree in 1526 and became a practicing doctor; however, he never seems to have been terribly enthusiastic about his profession, devoting most of his energy to studies of mining and geology. He not only continued his medical practice and his geological studies there, but was appointed to several public and diplomatic posts by Duke Maurice of Saxony, to whom he dedicated his book De Natura Fossilium. He died in 1555, one year before the posthumous publication of De Re Metallica, his greatest work.
De re metallica (Latin for On the Nature of Metals (Minerals)) is a book cataloging the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals, published in 1556. The author was Georg Bauer, whose pen name was the Latinized Georgius Agricola. The book remained the authoritative text on mining for 250 years after its publication.
Agricola describes methods for prospecting for minerals, their occurrence in the form of alluvial deposits and the distribution of the veins or ores. He follows these sections by a description of the methods of deep mining, the building of shafts to extract the ore, and tunnels to follow the veins. The book is illustrated copiously with often very detailed woodcuts of the various operations. |
