Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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              <s>
                <pb pagenum="xxvi"/>
              mines, and the fortunes of many kings have been much amplified there­
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              by. </s>
              <s>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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              </s>
              <s>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. </s>
              <s>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. </s>
              <s>I have only one whom I can follow;
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              that is C. </s>
              <s>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. </s>
              <s>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. </s>
              <s>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. </s>
              <s>Of the Latin writers, Pliny, as I have already said, has described
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              a few methods of working. </s>
              <s>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. </s>
              <s>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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              </s>
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