523 years ago the "father of mineralogy" Georgy Agricola was born.
How can a scientist combine progressive views with a belief in gnomes and kobolds, and with whose help mineralogy stopped going hand in hand with alchemy?
Georg Bauer was born into a tailor family in 1494. His father was doing well enough for him to educate his children. Intending to become a priest, Georg entered the University of Leipzig in 1514, where he studied classical literature, philosophy and languages. Then he changed his surname to its Latin translation - Agricola (both mean "farmer"). At the suggestion of one of the teachers, Peter Mosellanus, he became a teacher himself and began teaching Greek and Latin at a school in Zwickau. There he quickly rose to the rank of rector, turning a religious school into an educational institution in the spirit of the New Age.
A few years later Agricola returned to Leipzig, where he became friends with a circle of humanists, started a correspondence with Erasmus of Rotterdam. He changed the direction of his studies again, going to Italy (Bologna and Padua) to study medicine and natural science. After receiving his degree, he returned to his native Saxony, and a little later he was given a place as a doctor in the city of Joachimstal.
Apparently, the study of rocks and the technology of ore mining fascinated him much more than medical practice. Our hero spent a lot of time observing, studying minerals. Already the first work in which Agricola tried to organize everything that was known at that time in the field of mineralogy and geology, attracted attention and earned a favorable response from Erasmus himself.
Around the same time, Agricola married, and quite successfully, and became a co-owner of several mines. In 1530 he left the practice and went to travel around Germany, inspecting the mines and mines. In 1546, Agricola, at the invitation of Elector Moritz of Saxony, remained in Chemnitz, where he first became a city doctor, and a little later - burgomaster. However, the Catholic Agricola in the Protestant Chemnitz did not hold out for a long time in this post, left it and concentrated on his scientific research.
Here is how the translator of one of his works, the American mining engineer and future US President Herbert Hoover, described the time of Agricola's life: “Agricola entered the world when forty years had passed since the publication of Gutenberg's first book; … Erasmus of Rotterdam, who would become a friend and patron of Agricola, was finishing his student years. The Reformation was still ahead, but not far off, Luther was born a year earlier than Agricola. … By the time of Agricola's birth, Columbus had just returned from his great journey, only three years had passed since Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope. It was a time when many things that seem familiar in science and understanding of the world were just emerging, and the old, be it alchemy or superstition, was reluctant to retreat.
The work of our hero made a significant contribution to this. In the 1540s and early 1550s, he wrote several books on geology, groundwater and gases, systematics of minerals, history of metals, Latin and German terminology in mineralogy and metallurgy. He described wind and water as geological forces, explained earthquakes and eruptions by the work of heated underground gases, paid attention to fossils, noting their resemblance to living organisms (now it seems clear to anyone, but in the time of Agricola, the guess was nontrivial).
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Agricola's main work, the 12-volume De Re Metallica (literally "On the Nature of Metals"), was published after his death in 1555. In it, the scientist revised everything that was known at that time about the search and extraction of minerals, described the technologies and equipment used in mines, walked along dowsing (searching for water or ores using a fork from a vine): “… a prudent man who understands the signs nature does not need a vine … he will see the natural signs of (ore) veins even without the help of a magic rod …”. He also broke with alchemy, the influence of which was traced in many works of that time, and with the old theory of the four elements (earth, water, fire and air). And in general, as he noted, "I missed everything that I did not see myself or did not hear or read from people whom I can trust."
Agricola derived his classification of minerals on the basis of their hardness, color, structure, solubility, odor and taste. To the metals known at that time: gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, lead and mercury - Agricola added bismuth and antimony. He was the first to point out the difference between igneous and sedimentary rocks. He also noticed that the rocks occur in certain layers, which are located in the same order, remaining over a large area. He also mentions the technologies of smelting metals, and issues of mine management, and the frequent illnesses of miners.
Of course, there were also delusions in this work. For example, he wrote about metallic arsenic and zinc, as was customary, as alloys of lead with tin and silver. In addition, relying on one of his earlier works, Agricola insisted on the existence of various underground creatures: harmless gnomes and an evil kobold, which was associated with a mineral harmful to humans, from which cobalt would be isolated two centuries later.
Despite this, Agricola's works clearly show the anticipation of the New Age with its attitude to knowledge, its reliance on observations and evidence.
