First Principles of the Science of Mining and Salt Mining
Cancrinus’ work, First Principles of the Science of Mining and Salt Mining, which was published in twelve volumes between the years 1773 and 1791 in Frankfurt, Germany, was the first attempt to organize and coordinate the existing mineralogical, geologic, and engineering knowledge of its day into a comprehensive tome of applied technology. It was translated into Russian, and parts of it into French, and was considered the most complete standard work of reference at the time. As such it documents the achieved knowledge of the time as well as its errors and misconceptions. For this reason it is an important artifact in the history of science and technology. Then, as now, it would appear that technology lagged behind science. Library investigation has revealed that this work was published as twelve volumes in ten books. This translated volume is the first part containing the mineralogy.
Annotations and Notes
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Published:January 01, 1980
Abstract
Annotations and notes are indicated in the text, within parentheses, by the letter n, followed by the corresponding number. This procedure was followed rather than the more convent!onal use of superscript numbers because the pages needed to be typed single-spaced for microfiche and the superscript numbers would have o\*erlapped onto the preceding line of type, obscuring both the number and the writing,