ii. TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. 



the continuous flow of sustained thought which others display, but the fact 

 that the writing of the work extended over a period of twenty years, suffic- 

 iently explains the considerable variation in style. The technical descriptions 

 in the later books often take the form of House-that-jack-built sentences 

 which have had to be at least partially broken up and the subject 

 occasionally re-introduced. Ambiguities were also sometimes found which it 

 was necessary to carry on into the translation. Despite these criticisms we 

 must, however, emphasize that Agricola was infinitely clearer in his style 

 than his contemporaries upon such subjects, or for that matter than his 

 successors in almost any language for a couple of centuries. All of the 

 illustrations and display letters of the original have been reproduced and 

 the type as closely approximates to the original as the printers have been 

 able to find in a modern font. 



There are no footnotes in the original text, and Mr. Hoover is responsible 

 for them all. He has attempted in them to give not only such comment 

 as would tend to clarify the text, but also such information as we have 

 been able to discover with regard to the previous history of the subjects 

 mentioned. We have confined the historical notes to the time prior to 

 Agricola, because to have carried them down to date in the briefest manner 

 would have demanded very much more space than could be allowed. In the 

 examination of such technical and historical material one is appalled at the 

 flood of mis-information with regard to ancient arts and sciences which has 

 been let loose upon the world by the hands of non-technical translators and 

 commentators. At an early stage we considered that we must justify any 

 divergence of view from such authorities, but to limit the already alarming 

 volume of this work, we later felt compelled to eliminate most of such dis- 

 cussion. When the half-dozen most important of the ancient works bearing 

 upon science have been translated by those of some scientific experience, 

 such questions will, no doubt, be properly settled. 



We need make no apologies for De Re Metallica. During 180 years 

 it was not superseded as the text-book and guide to miners and metallurgists, 

 for until Schliiter's great work on metallurgy in 1738 it had no equal. That 

 it passed through some ten editions in three languages at a period when the 

 printing of such a volume was no ordinary undertaking, is in itself sufficient 

 evidence of the importance in which it was held, and is a record that no other 

 volume upon the same subjects has equalled since. A large proportion of the 

 technical data given by Agricola was either entirely new, or had not been 

 given previously with sufficient detail and explanation to have enabled a 

 worker in these arts himself to perform the operations without further guid- 

 ance. Practically the whole of it must have been given from personal ex- 

 perience and observation, for the scant library at his service can be appreci- 

 ated from his own Preface. Considering the part which the metallic arts 

 have played in human history, the paucity of their literature down to 

 Agricola's time is amazing. No doubt the arts were jealously guarded by 

 their practitioners as a sort of stock-in-trade, and it is also probable that 

 those who had knowledge were not usually of a literary turn of mind ; and, 



