ii 4 THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY, 



iron, were dug out of the earth, and gold ob- 

 tained by wafhing the fund. 



After this we perceive metallurgy gradually 

 afluming the form of a fy Hematic fcience. In 

 that manner was it treated by G. Agricola. H'rj 

 twelve books on metallurgy were firft nubliih- 

 ed at Balil in 1546; though it appear, from 

 his epiftlc dedicatory, that they had been pre- 

 pared for the prefs ever lince the month of De- 

 cember of tiie year 1500. As they contain 

 much of the knowledge of the prefent day, we 

 think it confident with our plan, to enumerate 



them fingly. In his dedication he complains, 



that he had received no aiMance from the anci- 

 ent writers, except a little from the fecond Pli- 

 ny. Not one of them attended futlicicntly to a 

 part, and much lefs to the whole art. Of the 

 Greeks he found no writers, except Strato of 

 Lampfacus, the fucceflbr of Theophralhis, who 

 \vas the author of a book (iince loll) on metal- 

 lic machines and inilrumcnts ; unlefs, perhaps, 

 the poet Philo in his MetuUicus treated upon 

 this fubjecl. But this woik too has not clcap- 

 ed the wreck of time. He mentions t\vo books 

 written in the German language, one anony- 

 mous, on the experiments on metallic bodies and 

 metals ; but which he fays is very confufcd : 

 The other is by Calbus Fribcrg on veins; on 

 whom he make* this obfervation : " Venter cam 

 41 quaui fumiit, pattern UbiUlvit." He fpcalis of 



