PREFACE. 



Vll 



mafters, upon fcientific principles ; and ia 

 that place he feems to have conceived a 

 thought of enlarging upon Baron Pabft v. 

 Ohains idea of a phyfical .or fubterraneous 

 geography, and of collecting on his travels as 

 many fads as might generalife them, and 

 reduce the art of difcovering and purfuing 

 metallic veins to better principles. Hitherto 

 it was entirely left, either to chance, or the fu- 

 perftitious and ignorant practices of common 

 workmen ; perhaps to the perfonal fkill and 

 unfyftematic empirical experience of illite- 

 rate miners, which of courfe is confined to 

 fingle mountains, and fcarce ever outlives 

 the man. I need not dwell on the advantages 

 of this happy idea ; fince, from the prefent 

 publication, and fbrhe' others which I {hall 

 fpeak of afterwards, it is obvious how in- 

 ftructive it mufi prove for the art of Mining ; 

 which, after the Nautical art, feems to be 

 the moil complicate, expeniive, and hazard- 

 ous, of all. 



I was acquainted with him in the year 



1768, when from Saxony and the Hartzforeft 



he went to Holland, France, and England. 



a 3 We 



