AGRICOLA, GEORG , German scholar and man of science, known as "the father of mineralogy," was born at Glauchau in Saxony on March 24, 149o. The name Agricola is the Latinized form of the German Bauer. His .early studies were in philology, but he took his degree in medicine in Italy. On his return to Germany he settled as practising physician in the Joachimstal, a centre of mining and smelting works, his object being partly "to fill in the gaps in the art of healing," partly to test what had been written about mineralogy by care ful observation of ores and the methods of their treatment. Bermannus, sive de re metallica dialogus, the first attempt to reduce to scientific order the knowledge won by practical work, brought Agricola into notice. (This work was translated by Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hoover.) In 153o Prince Maurice of Sax ony appointed him historiographer with an annual allowance, and he migrated to Chemnitz, the centre of the mining industry, in order to widen the range of his observations. His chief inter est was in mineralogy ; but he occupied himself also with medical, mathematical, theological, and historical subjects, his chief his torical work being the Dominatores Saxonici a prima origine ad hanc aetatem, published at Freiberg. In 1544 he published the De ortu et causis subterraneorum, in which he laid the first foundations of a physical geology and criticized the theories of the ancients. In followed the De natura eorum quae eu unt e terra; in 1546 the De veteribus et novis metallis, a com prehensive account of the discovery and occurrence of minerals; in 1548 the De animantibus subterraneis; and in the two follow ing years a number of smaller works on the metals. His most famous work, the De re metallica, libri xii., was published in 1556, though apparently finished several years before, since the dedication to the elector and his brother is dated 155o. It is a complete and systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy, illustrated with many fine and interesting woodcuts and contain ing, in an appendix, the German equivalents for the technical terms used in the text. He died at Chemnitz on Nov. 21, See article by Gumbel in Allgem. Deutsche Biog. (1875) ; F. A. Schmidt, Georg Agricola's Bermannus mit Einleitung (Freiberg, 18o6) .