De Re Metallica

Georgius Agricola

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780486600062
• eBook ISBN: 9780486318394
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Science Research & Methodology
• Index: History

Originally published in 1556, Agricola's De ReM etallica was the first book on mining to be based on field research and observation — what today would be called the "scientific approach." It was therefore the first book to offer detailed technical drawings to illustrate the various specialized techniques of the many branches of mining, and the first to provide a realistic history of mining from antiquity to the mid-sixteenth century. For almost 200 years, Agricola remained the only authoritative work in this area and by modern times it had become one of the most highly respected scientific classics of all time. A book more often referred to in literature on mining and metallurgy than any other, its Latin text prevented it from being as widely used as it might have been.
In 1912, the book was translated by former President Herbert Clark Hoover and his wife. Printed in a limited edition, the work was quickly bought up by book collectors, historians, and medievalists, who had found that there was much to be learned from its pages. The book contains an unprecedented wealth of material on alluvial mining, alchemy, silver refining, smelting, surveying, timbering, nitric acid making, and hundreds of other phases of the medieval art of metallurgy. The text even covers the legal aspects of mining the use of boundary stones, forfeitures of titles, safety requirements of tunnel building in the 1500s, and so on.
But the plates, perhaps more than anything else, have insured Agricola's continued importance. Brilliantly executed drawings, richly detailed, reveal a whole medieval world of machinery, industrial technique, tools, even costume and architecture. All 289 of the original woodcuts are reproduced in this reprint of the 1912 edition, offering students of the period, commercial artists, engineers, metallurgists, and even curious general readers an unforgettable picture of the first age of technology.

GENERAL INDEX.

NOTE.—The numbers in heavy type refer to the Text;
those in plain type to the Footnotes, Appendices, etc.

ABANDONMENT OF MINES 217

ABERTHAM.

Mines at 74; 92; 74

ABOLITE 113

Abstrich 465; 492

ABYDOS.

Gold mines of 26; 27

Lead figure from 390

Abzug 464; 465; 475

Achates (see AGATE).

ACCIDENTS TO MINERS 214—218

ACCOUNTS (Mining) 96—98

ADIT 101

Aeris flos (see Copper Flowers).

Aeris squama (see Copper Scales).

Aes caldarium 109

Aes luteum 109

Aes nigrum 109

Aes purum fossile (see Native Copper).

Aes rude plumbei colons (see Copper Glance).

Aes ustum (see Roasted Copper).

Aetites 2

AFRICA.

Iron 420

Tin 412

AGATE 114

AGRICULTURE.

Mining compared with 5

AILMENTS OF MINERS (see Maladies of Miners).

AIR CURRENTS IN MINES 121; 200

ALABASTER 114

ALCHEMISTS XXVII—XXX; 44; 608

Agricola’s opinion of XII; XXVII.

Amalgamation 297

Assaying 248; 219

Discovery of acids 439; 460

Distillation 441

ALJUSTREL TABLET 83—84

ALKALI 558

ALLOYS, ASSAYING OF 247—252

ALLUVIAL MINING 321—348; 330—332

ALSTON MOOR 84

ALTENBERG XXXI; VI.

Collapse of mine 216

Miners poisoned 214

Tin working appliances 290; 304; 318

ALUM 564—568; 564—570

A solidified juice 1

Elizabethan Charter 283

In roasted pyrites 350

In Sal artificiosus 463

Latin and German terms 220; 221

Papal monopoly 570

Use in making nitric acid 439; 460

AMALGAM.

Parting the go...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Georgii Agricolage
• Book I.
• Book II.
• Book III.
• Book IV.
• Book V.
• Book VI.
• Book VII.
• Book VIII.
• Book IX.
• Book X.
• Book XI.
• Book XII.
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Index