Agricola, author of De re metallica

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.^[1] The book remained the authoritative text on mining for 250 years after its publication.

Agricola had spent nine years in the Bohemian town of Joachimsthal, now in the Czech Republic. (Joachimsthal is famous for its silver mines and the origin of the word "Thaler.") After Joachimsthal, he spent the rest of his life in Chemnitz, a prominent mining town in what was then Saxony. Both Joachimsthal and Chemnitz are in the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains.

Mining Methods

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. The use of water for washing ores is discussed in great detail, such as the use of launders and washing tables, especially needed for heavy ores such as those of gold and tin, together with various machines needed to crush the vein ore, many of which were worked by water mills. He makes frequent reference to classical authors, such as Pliny the Elder who wrote about mining methods in his Natural History published in the 77 AD.

Prospecting, a woodcut from the book

One of the primary problems this book addressed was the removal of water from the mines. The limit Agricola documents for raising water from the mines via a pump is 32 feet. It could then be dumped into another level and pumped from there. The investigation of this problem (and its popularization) would spark a discussion leading to the discovery of air pressure. Also included in this volume are discussions of the geology of ore bodies, surveying, mine construction, and ventilation. He describes the method of breaking hard rocks using fire-setting, which involved making a fire against a rock-face, and then quenching the rock with water to induce cracking by thermal shock.

Fire-setting underground

A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore

Publication History

Although Agricola died in 1555, the publication was delayed until the completion of the extensive and detailed woodcuts. The book was costly and limited in distribution: in many areas it was chained in churches, so that the priest could translate from Latin for parishioners.^[2] One of the rare editions (printed in 1657 in Italy) of this book can be found.^[3]

In 1912, the first English translation of De Re Metallica was privately published in London by subscription. The translators were Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer (and later President of the United States), and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, a geologist and Latinist. The translation is notable not only for its clarity of language, but for the extensive footnotes, which detail the classical references to mining and metals, such as the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, the history of mining law in England, France, and the German states; safety in mines, including historical safety; and known minerals at the time that Agricola wrote De Re Metallica.

Subsequent translations into other languages, including German, owe much to the Hoover translations, as their footnotes detail their difficulties with Agricola's baroque vocabulary.

See also

• Naturalis Historia
• Pliny the Elder
• Scientific literature
• Theophrastus

References

1. ↑
2. ↑
3. ↑

External links

• Full text of De Re Metallica
• Agricola's De Re Metallica translated by former President H Hoover and his wife L.H. Hoover, full text (650 pages) and illustrations

pl:De Re Metallica