58 Analysis of the Protogaa of Leibnitz. 



the means of draining them. What was the exact amount of time 

 and thought that he devoted to this object it is perhaps impossible 

 after an interval of a century and a half to determine. It is probable, 

 however, that he was a kind of director or superintendant of mining 

 operations in the liartz, during a considerable part if not the whole 

 of these ten years. In an application made by him for a post in the 

 service of the Emperor in 1680 or '81, he stated that his attention 

 was much occupied with this business, which however he then hoped 

 would be finished, so far as he was concerned, in the course of a few 

 months. The mountains are about forty miles from Hanover. He 

 had evidently made himself familiar, by personal observation, with 

 the whole district of the Hartz, and with all the processes of mining 

 and metallurgy practised there. The appearances presented in the 

 mines could hardly fail of leading a mind like that of Leibnitz, to 

 some speculations on the causes by which they had been produced, 

 and to the composition of a work like the Protogsea. It is from this 

 quarter that many of his facts and illustrations are drawn. In 1687 

 he went to Italy, to collect materials for a history of the House of 

 Brunswick, and when in that country did not neglect the opportu- 

 nity that was offered of prosecuting his geological enquiries and ob- 

 servations. 



It appears from a passage in the 19th section, that the Prologsea 

 was composed soon after his return to Hanover, in 1691, when he 

 was forty five years of age. Like most of bis other writings, it is 

 a short tract ; such as would occupy a space of fifty pages only in 

 this Journal. It is illustrated by twelve plates, prepared by the au- 

 thor, containing representations of shells, ichthyolites, teeth of mara- 

 miferse and other organic remains. A " schediasma" or abstract of 

 the work, (how full I am unable to say, but it is spoken of as con- 

 taining only " primas lineas" — a mere oudine,) was inserted by Leib- 

 nitz in the Leipzic Acta Eruditorum, for January, 1693. The Pro- 

 togsea itself then lay in manuscript till 1749, thirty three years after 

 his death, when it was at length published, with a dull impertinent 

 preface, half as long as the work to which it is attached, by Scheide. 

 From the manner in which the abstract in the Acta Eruditorum is 

 referred to, in two or three places in his letters, it may be conjectured 

 that the author thought well of his performance, and felt a consider- 

 able anxiety to learn the opinions of others respecting it. 



The Protoga^a is divided into forty eight sections or chapters, of 

 which the first five, after the introductory one, are upon the primeval 



