De Re Metallica

About this book

In twelve books, Georgius Agricola describes everything known about mining and metallurgy in the sixteenth century: how to find veins of ore, how to survey a mine and dig its shafts and tunnels, how to drain the water with pumps driven by water wheels and horses, how to ventilate the galleries, how to assay, crush, wash and smelt ores of gold, silver, copper, lead and tin, and how to make salt, glass and acids. He begins by defending mining against those who called it a wicked trade, and his hundreds of woodcuts show the machines and the miners at work.

Context and significance

Agricola (1494–1555), a German doctor who lived among the mining towns of Bohemia and Saxony, died a year before the book was published in 1556, and it remained the standard work for two centuries. This translation, of 1912, with extensive notes, is by the mining engineer Herbert Hoover, later President of the United States, and his wife Lou Henry Hoover. Compare Babbage's On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures.

About the author