INTRODUCTION. 



xvii. 



seen in the library of the town of Bejar. An interesting note appears in 

 the glossary given by Sir John Pettus in his translation of Lazarus Erckern's 

 work on assaying. He says^^ " but I cannot enlarge my observations upon 

 any more words, because the printer calls for what I did write of a metallick 

 dictionary, after I first proposed the printing of Erckem, but intending 

 within the compass of a year to pubUsh Georgius Agricola, De Re MetaUica 

 (being fully translated) in EngUsh, and also to add a dictionary to it, I 

 shall reserve my remaining essays (if what I have done hitherto be approved) 

 till then, and so I proceed in the dictionary." The translation was never 

 published and extensive inquiry in various libraries and among the family 

 of Pettus has failed to yield any trace of the manuscript. 



'*Sir John Pettus, Fleta Minor, The Laws of Art and Nature, &c., London, 1636, p. 121. 



