338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



was engaged in wordy wars about such problems as to whether 

 fossils had been formed by the influence of stars or were the remnants 

 of former living organisms. It is noteworthy that among the most 

 rational contributions to this discussion, which continued over a 

 century, were those of Leonardo da Vinci and Nicholas Steno, the 

 first of whom based his arguments on his owm observations as an 

 engineer, while the second had some practical experience in the 

 study of ore bodies. These two belonged to the class of scientists 

 designated by John Webster in his History of Metals, published in 

 1671, as "experimental observers," of whoni he says: 



For either they were such as attended the mines, or went thither to converse with 

 the workmen to inform themselves, or bore some office about those places, or were 

 those that either for curiosities sake, or to enrich their knowledge, did gather together 

 all the minerals they could, or used the most of all these ways to gain understanding. 

 And therefore I commend these above all the rest before named, to be read and studied 

 of all officers and men belonging to any mineral or metallick works; and of all young 

 students and beginners that seek after mineral knowledge: because these authors 

 speak not altogether by opinion, fancie, and conjecture; but forth of their own experi- 

 ence, and the experience of those that were conversant about the mines, and getting 

 of ore, and purifying and refining of them; and therefore more certain to be relyed 

 upon for leaders and teachers. And more, because they have written what they 

 knew, openly and plainly as the subject would bear; and not in parables, and senig- 

 matical expressions. 



This treatise contains, amid much that now appears childish, some 

 practical hints for the discovery of ore bodies. Webster laments the 

 almost universal ignorance of this subject, which he accounts for as 

 follows : 



That the way and means to discover the nature of minerals, is not onely difficult 

 and dangerous, but in itself is so sordid, base and troublesome, that the most men of 

 parts, will hardly adventure themselves into the pits or shafts where ores are usually 

 gotten; nor can indure to stay so long, that they can rightly inform themselves of any- 

 thing that may be satisfactory to their inquiries. And the Miners or Workmen (for 

 the most part) being but people of the most indigent sort, and such as whose knowledge 

 and aims reach no higher than to get a poor living by that slavish laboiu", regard to 

 inform themselves of no more then what may conduce to such a poor and servile kind 

 of living; by which means they are little able to give any learned man satisfaction to 

 those necessary inquiries that might tend to enable him to judge rightly of the nature 

 of the things in that subterraneous kingdom. 



The prejudice of the scholar against learning from the miner, so 

 quaintly described by Webster, gradually died out in the eighteenth 

 century. Thereby the science profited much, through acquiring a 

 better groundwork of fact, while, on the other hand, technology 

 derived assistance from applied science. Even before Werner's day 

 a number of mining officials discussed in print the occurrence of min- 

 eral deposits. As a result of this better understanding between the 

 scientist and the practical man geology developed from a condition 

 of pure speculation into a science which approached the rational and 



