Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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          <chap>
            <pb/>
            <p type="head">
              <s>
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              INTRODUCTION.
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              </s>
            </p>
            <p type="head">
              <s>BIOGRAPHY.</s>
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            <p type="main">
              <s>Georgius Agricola was born at Glauchau, in
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              Saxony, on March 24th, 1494, and therefore entered
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              the world when it was still upon the threshold of the
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              Renaissance; Gutenberg's first book had been print­
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              ed but forty years before; the Humanists had but
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              begun that stimulating criticism which awoke the
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              Reformation; Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was sub­
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              sequently to become Agricola's friend and patron,
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              was just completing his student days. </s>
              <s>The Refor­
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              mation itself was yet to come, but it was not long delayed, for Luther
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              was born the year before Agricola, and through him Agricola's home­
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              land became the cradle of the great movement; nor did Agricola escape being
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              drawn into the conflict. </s>
              <s>Italy, already awake with the new classical revival, was
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              still a busy workshop of antiquarian research, translation, study, and
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              publication, and through her the Greek and Latin Classics were only
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              now available for wide distribution. </s>
              <s>Students from the rest of Europe,
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              among them at a later time Agricola himself, flocked to the Italian
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              Universities, and on their return infected their native cities with the newly­
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              awakened learning. </s>
              <s>At Agricola's birth Columbus had just returned from his
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              great discovery, and it was only three years later that Vasco Da Gama rounded
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              Cape Good Hope. </s>
              <s>Thus these two foremost explorers had only initiated
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              that greatest period of geographical expansion in the world's history. </s>
              <s>A few
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              dates will recall how far this exploration extended during Agricola's lifetime.
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              </s>
              <s>Balboa first saw the Pacific in 1513; Cortes entered the City of Mexico in
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              1520; Magellan entered the Pacific in the same year; Pizarro penetrated
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              into Peru in 1528; De Soto landed in Florida in 1539, and Potosi was dis­
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              covered in 1546. Omitting the sporadic settlement on the St. </s>
              <s>Lawrence by
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              Cartier in 1541, the settlement of North America did not begin for a quarter
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              of a century after Agricola's death. </s>
              <s>Thus the revival of learning, with its
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              train of Humanism, the Reformation, its stimulation of exploration and the
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              re-awakening of the arts and sciences, was still in its infancy with Agricola.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>We know practically nothing of Agricola's antecedents or his youth. </s>
              <s>His
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              real name was Georg Bauer (“peasant”), and it was probably Latinized by
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              his teachers, as was the custom of the time. </s>
              <s>His own brother, in receipts </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
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