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APPENDIX B.

of light on ancient metallurgy, as for instance in Homer’s description of Vulcan’s foundry ;while the historians, philosophers, statesmen, and physicians, among them Herodotus,Xenophon, Demosthenes, Galen, and many others, have left some incidental references to themetals and mining, helpful to gleaners from a field, which has been almost exhausted by time.Even Archimedes made pumps, and Hero surveying instruments for mines.

ROMAN AUTHORS.—Pre-eminent among all ancient writers on these subjects is, ofcourse, Pliny, and in fact, except some few lines by Vitruvius, there is practically little elsein extant Roman literature of technical interest, for the metallurgical metaphors of the poetsand orators were threadbare by this time, and do not excite so much interest as upon theirfirst appearance among the Greeks and Hebrews.

Pliny (Caius Plinius Secundus) was born 23 a.d., and was killed by eruption of Vesuvius79 a.d. His Natural History should be more properly called an encyclopaedia, the wholecomprising 37 books ; but only portions of the last four books relate to our subject, and overone-half of the material there is upon precious stones. To give some rough idea of the smallquantity of even this, the most voluminous of ancient works upon our subject, we have madean estimate that the portions of metallurgical character would cover, say, three pages ofthis text, on mining two pages, on building and precious stones about ten pages. Plinyand Dioscorides were contemporaries, and while Pliny nowhere refers to the Greek, internalevidence is most convincing, either that they drew from the same source, or that Pliny drewfrom Dioscorides. We have, therefore, throughout the text given precedence in time to theGreek author in matters of historical interest. The works of Pliny were first printed at Venicein 1469. They have passed dozens of editions in various languages, and have been twicetranslated into English. The first translation by Philemon Holland, London, 1601, is quiteimpossible. The second translation, by Bostock and Riley, London, 1855, was a greatadvance, and the notes are most valuable, but in general the work has suffered from a freedomjustifiable in the translation of poetry, but not in science. We have relied upon the Latinedition of Janus, Leipzig, 1870. The frequent quotations in our footnotes are sufficientindication of the character of Pliny’s work. In general it should be remembered that he washimself but a compiler of information from others, and, so far as our subjects are concerned,of no other experience than most travellers. When one considers the reliability of suchauthors to-day on technical subjects, respect for Pliny is much enhanced. Further, the textis no doubt much corrupted through the generations of transcription before it was set in type.So far as can be identified with any assurance, Pliny adds but few distinct minerals to thoseenumerated by Theophrastus and Dioscorides. For his metallurgical and mining informationwe refer to the footnotes, and in general it may be said that while those skilled in metallurgycan dimly see in his statements many metallurgical operations, there is little that does notrequire much deduction to arrive at a conclusion. On geology he offers no new philosophicaldeductions of consequence ; the remote connection of building stones is practically all thatcan be enumerated, lest one build some assumption of a knowledge of ore-deposits on theuse of the word “ vein”. One point of great interest to this work is that in his search for Latinterms for technical purposes Agricola relied almost wholly upon Pliny, and by some devotionto the latter we have been able to disentangle some very puzzling matters of nomenclaturein De Re Metallica, of which the term molybdaena may be cited as a case in point.

Vitruvius was a Roman architect of note of the 1st Century b.c. His work of tenbooks contains some very minor references to pumps and machinery, building stones, and thepreparation of pigments, the latter involving operations from which metallurgical deductionscan occasionally be safely made. His works were apparently first printed in Rome in 1496.There are many editions in various languages, the first English translation being from theFrench in 1692. We have relied upon the translation of Joseph Gwilt, London, 1875, withsuch alterations as we have considered necessary.

MEDIAEVAL AUTHORS. For convenience we group under this heading the writersof interest from Roman times to the awakening of learning in the early 16th Century.Apart from Theophilus, they are mostly alchemists ; but, nevertheless, some are of greatimportance in the history of metallurgy and chemistry. Omitting a horde of lesser lightsupon whom we have given some data under the author’s preface, the works principally con-cerned are those ascribed to Avicenna, Theophilus, Geber, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon,and Basil Valentine. Judging from the Preface to De Re Metallica, and from quotations in hissubsidiary works, Agricola must have been not only familiar with a wide range of alchemisticmaterial, but also with a good deal of the Arabic literature, which had been translated intoLatin. The Arabs were, of course, the only race which kept the light of science burningduring the Dark Ages, and their works were in considerable vogue at Agricola’s time.

Avicenna (980-1037) was an Arabian physician of great note, a translator of the Greekclassics into Arabic, and a follower of Aristotle to the extent of attempting to reconcile thePeripatetic elements with those of the alchemists. He is chiefly known to the world throughthe works which he compiled on medicine, mostly from the Greek and Latin authors. Theseworks for centuries dominated the medical world, and were used in certain European Univer-sities until the 17th century. A great many works are attributed to him, and he is copiouslyquoted by Agricola, principally in his De Ortu et Causis, apparently for the purpose ofexposure.