Georgius Agricola

“ Considering the part which the metallic arts have played in human history, the paucity of their literature down to Agricola's time is amazing. No doubt the arts were jealously guarded by their practitioners as a sort of stock-in-trade, and it is also probable that those who had knowledge were not usually of a literary turn of mind ”

“ There is no measure by which we may gauge the value of such a work to the men who followed in this profession during centuries, nor the benefits enjoyed by humanity through them.
That Agricola occupied a very considerable place in the great awakening of learning will be disputed by none except by those who place the development of science in rank far below religion, politics, literature, and art. ”

“ These emit horrible sounds and noises, not less than thunder, flashes of fire burst from them like the lightning, striking, crushing, and shattering buildings, belching forth flames and kindling fires even as lightning flashes. ”

“ The Reformation itself was yet to come, but it was not long delayed, for Luther was born the year before Agricola, and through him Agricola's homeland became the cradle of the great movement; nor did Agricola escape being drawn into the conflict. Italy, already awake with the new classical revival, was still a busy workshop of antiquarian research, translation, study, and publication, and through her the Greek and Latin Classics were only now available for wide distribution. ”

“ As to Agricola's contribution to the sciences of mining and metallurgy, De Re Metallica speaks for itself. While he describes, for the first time, scores of methods and processes, no one would contend that they were discoveries or inventions of his own. They represent the accumulation of generations of experience and knowledge ”

“ Essay on the Revenues of Athens, iv., 14. "But we cannot but feel surprised that the State, when it sees many private individuals enriching themselves from its resources, does not imitate their proceedings; for we heard long ago, indeed, at least such of us as attended to these matters, that Nicias the son of Niceratus kept a thousand men employed in the silver mines, whom he let on hire to Sosias of Thrace on condition that he should give him for each an obolus a day, free of all charges ”

“ We have confined the historical notes to the time prior to Agricola, because to have carried them down to date in the briefest manner would have demanded very much more space than could be allowed. In the examination of such technical and historical material one is appalled at the flood of mis-information with regard to ancient arts and sciences which has been let loose upon the world by the hands of non-technical translators and commentators. ”

“ Agricola states that he means to publish twelve books De Re Metallica, if he lives. That the appearance of this work was eagerly anticipated is evidenced by a letter from George Fabricius to Valentine Hertel : [17] “With great excitement the books De Re Metallica are being awaited. If he treats the material at hand with his usual zeal, he will win for himself glory such as no one in any of the fields of literature has attained for the last thousand years.” According to the dedication of De Veteribus et Novis Metallis, Agricola in 1546 already looked forward to its early publication. ”

“ To many even liberal scholars of the day, Luther's doctrines appeared wild and demagogic. Luther was not a scholarly man; his addresses were to the masses; his Latin was execrable. Nor did the bitter dissensions over hair-splitting theology in the Lutheran Church after Luther's death tend to increase respect for the movement among the learned. Agricola was a scholar of wide attainments, a deep-thinking, religious man, and he remained to the end a staunch Catholic, despite the general change of sentiment among his countrymen. ”

“ This is indeed the Golden Age. The greatest rewards come from gold; by gold love is won; by gold is faith destroyed; by gold is justice bought; the law follows the track of gold, while modesty will soon follow it when law is gone. ”

“ I have omitted all those things which I have not myself seen, or have not read or heard of from persons upon whom I can rely. That which I have neither seen, nor carefully considered after reading or hearing of, I have not written about. ”

“ Agricola's Latin, while mostly free from mediæval corruption, is somewhat tainted with German construction. Moreover some portions have not the continuous flow of sustained thought which others display, but the fact that the writing of the work extended over a period of twenty years, sufficiently explains the considerable variation in style. ”

“ All these minerals were later found to be forms of zinc, cobalt, or arsenic, and some of these minerals were in use long prior to Agricola. From Greek and Roman times down to long after Agricola, brass was made by cementing zinc ore with copper. Aristotle and Strabo mention an earth used to colour copper, but give no details. ”

“ For those who cultivate land which is alike arid, heavy, and barren, and in which they sow seeds, do not make so great a harvest as those who cultivate a fertile and mellow soil and sow their grain in that. ”

“ There are ten tribes at Athens, and if to each of these the State should assign an equal number of slaves, and the tribes should all make new cuttings, sharing their fortunes in common, then if but one tribe should make any useful discovery it would point out something profitable to the whole ”

“ No man could have thus held the respect of his countrymen unless he were devoid of bigotry and possessed of the highest sense of integrity, justice, humanity, and patriotism.
AGRICOLA'S INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS AND POSITION IN SCIENCE.
Agricola's education was the most thorough that his times afforded in the classics, philosophy, medicine, and sciences generally. Further, his writings disclose a most exhaustive knowledge not only of an extraordinary range of classical literature, but also of obscure manuscripts buried in the public libraries of Europe. ”

“ He had at hand many writers upon husbandry whom he could follow, in fact, there are more than fifty Greek authors whom Marcus Varro enumerates, and more than ten Latin ones, whom Columella himself mentions. I have only one whom I can follow; that is C. Plinius Secundus, [3] and he expounds only a very few methods of digging ores and of making metals. Far from the whole of the art having been treated by any one writer, those who have written occasionally on any one or another of its branches have not even dealt completely with a single one of them. ”

“ Another work, De Animantibus Subterraneis, usually published with De Re Metallica, is dated 1548 in the preface. It is devoted to animals which live underground, at least part of the time, but is not a very effective basis of either geologic or zoologic classification. Despite many public activities, Agricola apparently completed De Re Metallica in 1550, but did not send it to the press until 1553 ”

“ Of many of the Alchemists mentioned by Agricola little is really known, and no two critics agree as to the commonest details regarding many of them; in fact, an endless confusion springs from the negligent habit of the lesser Alchemists of attributing the authorship of their writings to more esteemed members of their own ilk, such as Hermes, Osthanes, etc., not to mention the palpable spuriousness of works under the names of the real philosophers, such as Aristotle, Plato, or Moses, and even of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Furthermore, no appreciation of Agricola's contribution to science can be gained without a study of De Ortu et Causis and De Natura Fossilium, for while De Re Metallica is of much more general interest, it contains but incidental reference to Geology and Mineralogy. Apart from the book of Genesis, the only attempts at funda- mental explanation of natural phenomena were those of the Greek Philosophers and the Alchemists. ”

“ The name Chemistry written in Greek, or Chemia, is so ancient as perhaps to have been used in the antediluvian age. Of this opinion was Zosimus the Panopolite, whose Greek writings, though known as long as before the year 1550 to George Agricola, and afterwards perused . . . . by Jas. Scaliger and Olaus Bofrichius, still remain unpublished in the King of France's library. In one of these, entitled, ' The Instruction of Zosimus the Panopolite and Philosopher, out of those written to Theosebeia, etc. ”

“ The other ausgehen is contrary to or toward the strike (slreichen) of ’ the vein, according to its rock (gestein) , that is called the gesteins ausgehen; for instance, ’ every vein that has its strike from east to west has its gesleins ausgehen to the east, and ’ vice-versa," Agricola’s classification of ore-deposits, after the general distinction between alluvial and in situ deposits, is based entirely upon form, as will be seen in the quotation below relating to the origin of canales. ”

“ We feel that it is scarcely doing Agricola justice to publish De Re Metallica only. While it is of the most general interest of all of his works, yet, from the point of view of pure science, De Natura Fossilium and De Ortu et Causis are works which deserve an equally important place. It is unfortunate that Agricola's own countrymen have not given to the world competent translations into German, as his work has too often been judged by the German translations, the infidelity of which appears in nearly every paragraph. ”

“ But besides this, the strongest argument of the detractors is that the fields are devastated by mining operations, for which reason formerly Italians were warned by law that no one should dig the earth for metals and so injure their very fertile fields, their vineyards, and their olive groves. Also they argue that the woods and groves are cut down, for there is need of an endless amount of wood for timbers, machines, and the smelting of metals. And when the woods and groves are felled, then are exterminated the beasts and birds, very many of which furnish a pleasant and agreeable food for man. ”

“ In 1546, when he was at the age of 52, began Agricola's activity in public life, for in that year he was elected a Burgher of Chemnitz; and in the same year Duke Maurice appointed him Burgomaster an office which he held for four terms. Before one can gain an insight into his political services, and incidentally into the character of the man, it is necessary to understand the politics of the time and his part therein, and to bear in mind always that he was a staunch Catholic under a Protestant Sovereign in a State seething with militant Protestantism. ”

“ Our word "arsenic" obviously takes root in the Greek for orpiment, which was also used by Pliny (xxxiv, 56) as arrhenicum, and later was modified to arsenicum by the Alchemists, who applied it to the oxide. Agricola gives the following in Bermannus (p. 448) , who has been previously discussing realgar and orpiment:—"Ancon: Avicenna also has a white variety. Bermannus: I cannot at all believe in a mineral of a white colour ”

“ The fundgrube of Saxony and Agricola's equivalent, the area capitis—head lease—we have rendered literally as "head meer," although in some ways "founders' meer" might be better, for, in Derbyshire, this was called the "finder's" or founder's meer, and was awarded under similar circumstances. It has also an analogy in Australian law in the "reward" leases. The term "measure" has the merit of being a literal rendering of the Latin, and also of being the identical term in the same use in the High Peak. ”

“ Again, if we wish to procure better and more productive fruits from trees and bushes, we must resort to cultivating, pruning, and grafting, which cannot be done without tools. Even as without vessels we cannot keep or hold liquids, such as milk, honey, wine, or oil, neither could so many living things be cared for without buildings to protect them from long-continued rain and intolerable cold. ”

“ The ground itself is turned up with ploughshares and harrows, tough stalks and the tops of the roots are broken off and dug up with a mattock, the sown seed is harrowed, the corn field is hoed and weeded ”

“ That his general learning was held to be of a high order is amply evidenced from the correspondence of the other scholars of his time Erasmus, Melanchthon, Meurer, Fabricius, and others.
Our more immediate concern, however, is with the advances which were due to him in the sciences of Geology, Mineralogy, and Mining Engineering. No appreciation of these attainments can be conveyed to the reader unless he has some understanding of the dearth of knowledge in these sciences prior to Agricola's time. ”

“ Iron is used not only in hand to hand fighting, but also to form the winged missiles of war, sometimes for hurling engines, sometimes for lances, sometimes even for arrows. I look upon it as the most deadly fruit of human ingenuity. For to bring Death to men more quickly we have given wings to iron and taught it to fly. ”

“ In the first place, the occupation of the miner, which I must be allowed to compare with other methods of acquiring great wealth, is just as noble as that of agriculture; for, as the farmer, sowing his seed in his fields injures no one, however profitable they may prove to him, so the miner digging for his metals, albeit he draws forth great heaps of gold or silver, hurts thereby no mortal man. ”

“ It is almost our daily experience to learn that, for the sake of obtaining gold and silver, doors are burst open, walls are pierced, wretched travellers are struck down by rapacious and cruel men born to theft, sacrilege, invasion, and robbery. We see thieves seized and strung up before us, sacrilegious persons burnt alive, the limbs of robbers broken on the wheel, wars waged for the same reason, which are not only destructive to those against whom they are waged, but to those also who carry them on. ”