De Re Metallica (Hoover English translation)

seen in the library of the town of Bejar. An interesting note appears in the glossary provided by Sir John Pettus in his translation of Lazarus Erckern’s work on assaying. He saysSir John Pettus, Fleta Minor, The Laws of Art and Nature, etc., London, 1636, p. 121.: “but I cannot enlarge my observations upon any more words, because the printer calls for what I did write of a metallic dictionary, after I first proposed the printing of Erckern, but intending within the compass of a year to publish Georgius Agricola, De Re Metallica (being fully translated) in English, and also to add a dictionary to it, I shall reserve my remaining essays (if what I have done hitherto be approved) till then, and so I proceed in the dictionary.” The translation was never published, and extensive inquiry in various libraries and among the family of Pettus has failed to yield any trace of the manuscript.

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