Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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            <p type="main">
              <s>
                <pb pagenum="ii"/>
              the continuous flow of sustained thought which others display, but the fact
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              that the writing of the work extended over a period of twenty years, suffic­
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              iently explains the considerable variation in style. </s>
              <s>The technical descriptions
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              in the later books often take the form of House-that-Jack-built sentences
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              which have had to be at least partially broken up and the subject
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              occasionally re-introduced. </s>
              <s>Ambiguities were also sometimes found which it
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              was necessary to carry on into the translation. </s>
              <s>Despite these criticisms we
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              must, however, emphasize that Agricola was infinitely clearer in his style
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              than his contemporaries upon such subjects, or for that matter than his
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              successors in almost any language for a couple of centuries. </s>
              <s>All of the
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              illustrations and display letters of the original have been reproduced and
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              the type as closely approximates to the original as the printers have been
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              able to find in a modern font.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>There are no footnotes in the original text, and Mr. </s>
              <s>Hoover is responsible
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              for them all. </s>
              <s>He has attempted in them to give not only such comment
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              as would tend to clarify the text, but also such information as we have
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              been able to discover with regard to the previous history of the subjects
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              mentioned. </s>
              <s>We have confined the historical notes to the time prior to
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              Agricola, because to have carried them down to date in the briefest manner
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              would have demanded very much more space than could be allowed. </s>
              <s>In the
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              examination of such technical and historical material one is appalled at the
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              flood of mis-information with regard to ancient arts and sciences which has
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              been let loose upon the world by the hands of non-technical translators and
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              commentators. </s>
              <s>At an early stage we considered that we must justify any
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              divergence of view from such authorities, but to limit the already alarming
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              volume of this work, we later felt compelled to eliminate most of such dis­
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              cussion. </s>
              <s>When the half-dozen most important of the ancient works bearing
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              upon science have been translated by those of some scientific experience,
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              such questions will, no doubt, be properly settled.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>We need make no apologies for
                <emph type="italics"/>
              De Re Metallíca.
                <emph.end type="italics"/>
              </s>
              <s> During 180 years
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              it was not superseded as the text-book and guide to miners and metallurgists,
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              for until Schlüter's great work on metallurgy in 1738 it had no equal. </s>
              <s>That
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              it passed through some ten editions in three languages at a period when the
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              printing of such a volume was no ordinary undertaking, is in itself sufficient
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              evidence of the importance in which it was held, and is a record that no other
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              volume upon the same subjects has equalled since. </s>
              <s>A large proportion of the
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              technical data given by Agricola was either entirely new, or had not been
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              given previously with sufficient detail and explanation to have enabled a
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              worker in these arts himself to perform the operations without further guid­
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              ance. </s>
              <s>Practically the whole of it must have been given from personal ex­
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              perience and observation, for the scant library at his service can be appreci­
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              ated from his own Preface. </s>
              <s>Considering the part which the metallic arts
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              have played in human history, the paucity of their literature down to
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              Agricola's time is amazing. </s>
              <s>No doubt the arts were jealously guarded by
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              their practitioners as a sort of stock-in-trade, and it is also probable that
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              those who had knowledge were not usually of a literary turn of mind; and, </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
        </body>
      </text>
    </archimedes>
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