[TheForge] Fwd: [blacksmiths] Early metal history

[Dave Mudge]

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Ferguson
To: blacksmiths at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2011 1:20 AM
Subject: [blacksmiths] Early metal history


I have been reading a little bit on the history of metals, so I have a
few questions.

Several sources indicated that the early iron was from meteors,
identifiable due to the nickel content. I am having a little trouble
imagining finding enough meteors to make things. Is this correct? What
have they found from meteors? Where?

de re metalica was originally published in the 1556 in latin, and
translated by Herbert Hoover (yes, the president) and his wife into
English. Has anybody ever seen a copy of this book? Is it worth
owning? Apparently it has many woodcut drawings of metalworking.

Any metal history books that would be worth getting? Miller publishes
a booklet on metal history, a reprint of several articles from the
1960s, but it is not very detailed, and tilted towards the history of
the Miller company.

Richard

Sculptures in copper and other metals
www.fergusonsculpture.com

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Iron Spirits <iron_spirits at bresnan.net>
Date: Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 3:14 AM
Subject: Re: [blacksmiths] Early metal history
To: blacksmiths at yahoogroups.com




The book with Herbert Hoover as the translator is:
Georgius Agricola De Re Metallica (ISBN: 1162581743 / 1-162-58174-3)
Hoover, Herbert Clark; Hoover, Lou Henry

and is available from abebooks.com and amazon.com at a cost of $30-50.

You can read the book online with http://books.google.com/books and do
a search for "De re metallica hoover".  Original in Latin is available
for free in PDF format.

http://www.archive.org/details/deremetallica50agri is a link for a
free copy of Hoover's translation in PDF, Kindle, Online and other
formats.  I downloaded in PDF format and the PDF book looked like it
was a exact copy, with all woodcut drawings.

Let it shine, Tom


“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement,
achievement, and success have no meaning.”

Benjamin Franklin