Father of mineralogy: Who is Georgius Agricola?

(1494-1555) German mineralogist. He is called the "father of mineralogy" because he laid the foundations of systematic mineralogy. Agricola, real name Georg Bauer, was born on March 24, 1494, in Glauchau, Saxony, within the borders of what is now the German Democratic Republic. Almost nothing is known about his family, childhood, and early years of education. Georg Bauer, who entered the University of Leipzig at the age of 20, adopted the Latin name Georgius Agricola at that time, following the tradition of his age. Leipzig University, where he studied philosophy, classical sciences, and philology from 1514 to 1518, was one of the focal points of Renaissance Humanism in those years. However, despite having received a high level of classical and humanistic education, Agricola chose to be a rigorous researcher and observer, not strictly adhering to the theories of the old scholars, thus leading a new era in the natural sciences.

After teaching Latin and ancient Greek at a school in Zwickau between 1518 and 1522, he returned to the University of Leipzig to study medicine; however, the university was in great turmoil during this period due to the Reform Movement. Agricola, on the other hand, was too staunchly Catholic to adopt Lutherans and Protestantism for life, so he immediately moved away from this circle and settled in Italy in 1523. He studied natural sciences, philosophy, and medicine at the universities of Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara, then went to Venice to do clinical studies. After working at Aldine Publishing House for two years, he returned to Saxony in 1526 and started to practice medicine. Agricola, who settled in Chcmnitz (today Karl Marx Stadt within the borders of the German Democratic Republic) in 1533, was appointed mayor of the same city in 1546 and died there on November 21, 1555.

The years he spent in Italy, especially two events, are important enough to be considered turning points in Agricola's life. The first of these events is his meeting with the great scholar Erasmus. Erasmus, who gained his friendship and trust in a short time, encouraged him to write and publish his books. Indeed, Agricola's first book, Bermannus, was published in 1530 with a foreword by Erasmus. The fact that only four people apart from Agricola, one of whom was Thomas More, were able to achieve such an honor is quite meaningful in terms of emphasizing Erasmus's trust in Agricola.

The event that prepared Agricola to become interested in mining and mineralogy while he had decided to become a physician coincides with the years he was in Italy. In those years, Aldine Publishing House in Venice was preparing to publish some works of Galenos, one of the great physicians of the Ancient Age. While continuing his clinical studies, Agricola also took on the task of preparing these books for publication. His acceptance of this post was, in a way, an important coincidence that would guide Agricola's later work. Because John Clement, with whom he worked for two years at Aldine Publishing, had previously been Thomas More's secretary during the writing of Utopia, this caused Agricola to be interested in this work. As a matter of fact, it can be said that More's the book and social thoughts had a great influence on his decision to study the social structure, laws, and social customs in the mining region of Saxony after he returned to Germany.

Returning to Saxony in 1526, Agricola began practicing medicine the following year in Joachimsthal, a small town in this rich mining and metallurgical region of Central Europe. Naturally, most of his patients were miners, and Agricola's medical experience was concentrated in this area. As in all his professions, he applied directly to observation rather than the knowledge gained in medicine. Although it can not be said that Agricola was never distinguished enough to be named among the great physicians of his time, his books were often considered the main reference source for occupational diseases specific to mining.

The town doctor Agricola spent all his remaining time wandering the local mines and smelters, talking to the miners, and reading all the classical works written on the subject, hoping to obtain new medicines from the ores and minerals of Saxony. Although his efforts, which lasted from 1527 to 1533, eventually disappointed him, many of his works, starting with his first book, contains information he collected during this research.

After these years of long research and investigations in the Joachimsthal region, Agricola settled in the town of Chemnitz, where he would stay for the rest of his life in 1533. In this small city of his homeland, Saxony, he was practicing medicine and writing down the information he had collected. He was highly respected among the people, and although he was a devout Catholic, he also had positive relations with the Protestant rulers. Indeed, in 1546 he was appointed mayor of Chemnitz by the elector of Saxony. In those years, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V initiated bilateral negotiations with the Protestant rulers of the electoral principalities within the imperial borders, in order to prevent the spread of Protestantism, which he saw as one of the greatest forces undermining the imperial authority, Agricola also participated as a representative in the bilateral negotiations between the emperor and the elector of Saxony. Apart from this diplomatic mission, Agricola's only activity in the field of politics is an enthusiastic speech he wrote in 1529 in order to create the spirit of national unity against the Turks. This fiery oratory calling on the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I to march on the Turks besieging Vienna became the patriotic hymn of the Germanic kingdom, an appeal to the unity of politics and religion, and had a profound effect on the people.

Bermannus, which includes Agricola's investigations in the Erzgebirge mining area; His little book Sive de re Metallica ("Bermannus, or On Metals"), in a sense, forms the core of his 12-volume masterpiece, De re Metallica ("On Metals"). De re Metallica is not only Agricola's most important work but the most important of all the works written in the field of technology in the 16th century. The publication of the book, which he started in 1530 but could finish 2C years later, took many years due to the time required for the preparation of hundreds of technical drawings made with the wood 'printing technique and was only completed in 1556, after Agricola's death. Although these drawings are not the only examples that have survived from 16th-century engineering, they are the most realistic and reliable among their contemporaries, as they reflect practice rather than a theoretical approach, and are at least as important as the content of the work. In this far-reaching work, Agricola speaks of the mysterious powers that chemists ascribed to metals in previous centuries; tells the geographical distribution of the mines in ancient times, and which mines were operated in these mines; It examines in full detail the legal system of the mines in Saxony, the forms of ownership and the management methods applied to date. However, the main focus of the work is mining and metalworking techniques. Before Agricola, hardly anything was written on mining; Agricola was the first to examine the geological features of the ores, the construction of the mines, the pumping and ventilation schemes, and the use of water power in the quarries. He was the first to describe the determination of the mineral ratio in ores, the enrichment methods applied to the ores before smelting, and the smelting and refining processes specific to various metals.

In his second major work, De Natura Fossilium ("On the Structure of Fossils"), which earned him the title of "father of mineralogy", Agricola classified minerals that were still called "fossils" in those times according to their geometric forms (spherical, conical, plane); He introduced the concept of "simple" and "compound" matter for the first time. In his era, knowledge of chemistry was almost nonexistent, and the classification of ores was extremely primitive, as real chemical analysis was not known, aside from the method of analyzing ores by burning them.

Agricola, in works such as De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum (“The Place and Causes of Subterranean Formations”) and De Natura Eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra (“On the Structure of Subterranean Substances”), both of which are considered to be the earliest scientific studies of physical geology, were published in 1546. He also examined in detail the formation of groundwater and gases, the role of rivers in soil erosion, and their effects on the formation of mountains, and came to the right conclusion that mineral deposits were formed by the precipitation of mines transported by aqueous solutions.

With all these works, which are the product of deep observation and research, Agricola took the first steps in leaving aside the knowledge from ancient times, especially the information presented by classical writers such as Aristotle and Plinius, and in transitioning to the period of scientific research.

WORKS:

Bermannus; sive, de re metallica, 153ü, (“Bermannus or On Metals”);

De ortu et causis subterraneorum, 1546, (“The Place and Causes of Underground Formations”);

De natura eorum quae effluunt ex terra, 1546 (“On the Formation of Leakage Minerals”);

De natura fossilurn 1546, (“On the Structure of Fossils”);

De veteribus et novis metallis, 1546, (“On Old and New Metals”);

Rerum metallicorum interpretatio, 1548, (“Explanation of Metallic Things”);

De animatibus ubterraneis, (“On the Underground Creatures”);

De re metallica, 1556, (“On Metals”).