ABSTRACT
According to Pliny it is primarily in the mineral realm that Man has violated the boundaries Nature has imposed. The prefaces of three of the Books on Mineralogy - Book 33, which introduces the subject; Book 36 on Stones and Book 35 on Painting - lament Man's excessive consumption of metals and stones, whether precious or not, which has produced alterations on the surface of the Earth. This has in turn disturbed the balance of Nature.
