596 APPENDIX A. 



" which they have created, or close by the shore which borders them. . . . 

 "Nor did the hollow places which now contain the seas all formerly exist, 

 " nor yet the mountains which check and break their advance, but in many 

 " parts there was a level plain, until the force of winds let loose upon it a 

 " tumultuous sea and a scathing tide. By a similar process the impact of 

 " water entirely overthrows and flattens out hills and mountains. But 

 " these changes of local conditions, numerous and important as they are, are 

 " not noticed by the common people to be taking place at the very moment 

 " when they are happening, because, through their antiquity, the time, place, 

 " and manner in which they began is far prior to human memory. The wind 

 " produces hiUs and mountains in two ways : either when set loose and free 

 " from bonds, it violently moves and agitates the sand; or else when, after 

 " having been driven into the hidden recesses of the earth by cold, as into a 

 " prison, it struggles with a great effort to burst out. For hills and mountains 

 " are created in hot countries, whether they are situated by the sea coasts or 

 ' ' in districts remote from the sea, by the force of winds ; these no longer held 

 " in check by the valleys, but set free, heap up the sand and dust, which they 

 ' ' gather from all sides, to one spot, and a mass arises and grows together. If 

 " time and space allow, it grows together and hardens, but if it be not allowed 

 " (and in truth this is more often the case), the same force again scatters the 

 " sand far and wide. . . . Then, on the other hand, an earthquake 

 " either rends and tears away part of a mountain, or engulfs and devours the 

 " whole mountain in some fearful chasm. In this way it is recorded the 

 " Cybotus was destroyed, and it is believed that within the memory of man 

 " an island under the rule of Denmark disappeared. Historians tell us that 

 " Taygetus suffered a loss in this way, and that Therasia was swallowed up 

 " with the island of Thera. Thus it is clear that water and the powerful 

 " winds produce mountains, and also scatter and destroy them. Fire only 

 " consumes them, and does not produce at all, for part of the mountains — 

 " usually the inner part — takes fire." 



The major portion of Book III. is devoted to the origin of ore channels, 

 which we reproduce at some length on page 47. In the latter part of Book 

 III., and in Books IV. and V., he discusses the principal divisions of the mineral 

 kingdom given in De Natura Fossilium, and the origin of their characteristics. 

 It involves a large amount of what now appears fruitless tilting at the Peripa- 

 tetics and the alchemists ; but nevertheless, embracing, as Agricola did, the 

 fundamental Aristotehan elements, he must needs find in these same ele- 

 ments and their subordinate binary combinations cause for every variation in 

 external character. 



Bermannus. This, Agricola's first work in relation to mining, was appa- 

 rently first published at Basel, 1530. The work is in the form of a dialogue 

 between " Bermannus," who is described as a miner, mineralogist, and " a 

 student of mathematics and poetry," and " Nicolaus Ancon " and " Johannes 

 Neavius," both scholars and physicians. Ancon is supposed to be of philoso- 

 phical turn of mind and a student of Moorish Uterature, Naevius to be par- 

 ticularly learned in the writings of Dioscorides, Phny, Galen, etc. " Berman- 



