Agricola, Georgius
,
De re metallica
,
1912/1950
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mines, and the fortunes of many kings have been much amplified there
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by. </
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<
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>But I will not now speak more of these matters, because I have
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dealt with these subjects partly in the first book of this work, and partly in
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the other work entitled
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De Veteribus et Novis Metallis,
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where I have refuted
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the charges which have been made against metals and against miners.
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>Now, though the art of husbandry, which I willingly rank with the art of
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mining, appears to be divided into many branches, yet it is not separated
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into so many as this art of ours, nor can I teach the principles of this as
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easily as Columella did of that. </
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<
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>He had at hand many writers upon hus
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bandry whom he could follow,—in fact, there are more than fifty Greek
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authors whom Marcus Varro enumerates, and more than ten Latin ones,
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whom Columella himself mentions. </
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>I have only one whom I can follow;
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that is C. </
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>Plinius Secundus,
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3
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and he expounds only a very few methods of
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digging ores and of making metals. </
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<
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>Far from the whole of the art having
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been treated by any one writer, those who have written occasionally on any
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one or another of its branches have not even dealt completely with a single
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one of them. </
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>Moreover, there is a great scarcity even of these, since alone of
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all the Greeks, Strato of Lampsacus,
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4
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the successor of Theophrastus,
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5
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wrote
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a book on the subject,
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De Machinis Metallicis;
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except, perhaps a work by the
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poet Philo, a small part of which embraced to some degree the occupation
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of mining.
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6
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Pherecrates seems to have introduced into his comedy, which
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was similar in title, miners as slaves or as persons condemned to serve in the
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mines. </
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<
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>Of the Latin writers, Pliny, as I have already said, has described
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a few methods of working. </
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>Also among the authors I must include the modern
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writers, whosoever they are, for no one should escape just condemnation
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who fails to award due recognition to persons whose writings he uses, even
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very slightly. </
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<
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>Two books have been written in our tongue; the one on the
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assaying of mineral substances and metals, somewhat confused, whose author
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is unknown
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7
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; the other “On Veins,” of which Pandulfus Anglus
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8
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is also
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said to have written, although the German book was written by Calbus of
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Freiberg, a well-known doctor; but neither of them accomplished the task
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