De Re Metallica – Georgius Agricola – the Hoover Translation.

Product Categories

De Re Metallica – Georgius Agricola – the Hoover Translation.

Short Description

This is the second printing of the famous Hoover translation of the equally famous 16th Century monumental publication by Georgius Agricola on all things then known in mining, metallurgy, geology etc. Published by Dover, New York in 1950.

Longer title … De re Metallica translated from the first Latin edition of 1556 with biographical introduction, annotations and appendices upon the development of mining methods, metallurgical processes, geology, mineralogy & mining law from the earliest times to the 16th century by Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover.

This edition, large royal octavo blue cloth covered boards, 638 pages after xxxi preliminaries, illustrated throughout from the images of the original wood engravings, simply superb. Dust jacket closed tear at top front otherwise pretty good, a very good copy overall. Quite a heavy book which will require and Overseas postage supplement.

The series of books within the book (an early style) I Arguments against the art of mining II The miner and the mining of veins III Veins and stringers and seams in rocks IV The method of delimiting veins and the functions of the mining officials V The digging of ore and the Surveyor’s art VI The miner’s tools and machines VII The assaying of ore VIII Rules for the work of roasting, crushing, and washing the ore IX Methods of smelting ores X the work of separating silver from gold, and lead from gold and silver XI Separating silver from copper XII rules for manufacturing salt, soda, alum, vitriol, sulphur, bitumen, and glass … Agricola’s works – Ancient authors on mineralogy, mining, metallurgy- Nomenclature to be adopted for weights and measures etc.

There is so much to admire about this book … the date of the foundation work, its breadth and quality, the learning from the engravings. Strangely maybe we particularly like the section on pumps in mines – essential equipment for water bound mines and the ingenuity pre powered machines is very interesting. Regarding the translation – what a job done by Hoover(s). The difficulty must have been very challenging – for example Agricola struggled to find Latin equivalents for many mining terms so had to contrive them from everyday Latin words – Hoover then had to decipher these once and only Latin words – unsurprising that his hair was depleted.

De Re Metallica – The Foundation Work for all Mining and related – the readable version

Updating...