ABSTRACT
Mining and the associated metallurgical processes belong to the oldest of the world’s industries. They were fully developed long before the advent of the modern period, and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did very little for their further advancement. The various mining and metallurgical processes were, however, but little known outside the ranks of those actually engaged in mining operations. In 1540, Vannucio Biringuccio, an Italian of Siena, published a more important work called De la Pirotechnia, the first really systematic, if strictly practical, book on mining and metallurgy. Owing to its intimate association with mining, mechanical engineering was comparatively advanced at the beginning of the modern period. The machines described by Agricola were for the most part worked by men or animals. And when the increasing demand for metal ores necessitated deeper mining, new devices became necessary in order to meet the new situation.
