The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1929-12-12
HOOVER'S PREFACE
MINING HISTORY
Have Distinction of Being
Credited in List of Authors
Rare Books
STARTED 20 YEARS AGO
Translators Say Work Was
Labor of Love" Performed
in Spare Moments

In spare moments
Washington President Hoover
enjoys a new distinction. He is
listed in the catalogues of the col
lectors and distributors of rare
boks.
When engaged in London 20 years
ago with British mining and en-
cheering firm, Herbert Clark Hoo
yer and his wife, Lou Henry Hoov-
er, devoted their spare hours to
translating Sixteenth Century
Latin work, by Beorgius Agricola,
dealing with the history of practice
of mining. The task required five
years and the first edition, richly
illustrated with wood cuts depict
ing development of the art from it's
earliest stages, sold for about $40.
Today copies of the first edition are
quoted at $3.50, with no sellers. A
copy recently obtained by Wesleyan
University by the President is val
ued at $500 but is not for sale.
The ornate title page of the trans
lation describes Ode Re Metallica"
as an encyclopedia upon the de-
allurgical processes, geoglogy, min
erology and mining law from the
earliest times to the Sixteenth Gen.
tury."
Gas this book could be but a la
Dor of love-" the translators explain
in their preface, cit had to find the
moments for its execution in night
hours, week-ends and holidays, in
all extending over a period of five
years."
The motive which inspired the
work is disclosed in another pas
sage of the preface. 1--WE do not of
fer De Re Metallica as a work of
practical value" "The methods
and processes have long since been
superseded; yet surely such a mile
stone on the road of development
of one of the two most basic Of
human industrial activities is more
worthy of preservation than the
thousands of volumes devoted 10
records of human destruction. If
the work serves to strengthen the
traditions of one of the most i'm
portant and least recognized of tie
worlds professions we shall be am
ply repaid"
Another passage of the preface
suggests the difficulties encounter
ed in translation.
"The task has been doubly diff
cult in this work because, in using
Latin, the author avails himself of
a medium which had ceased to ex-
pand thousand years before his
subject had in many respects come
into being; in consequence he was
in difficulties with large number
OF ideas for which there were no
corresponding words in the vocabu-
larly at his command, and instead
of adopting into the text his ma
tive German terms, he coined sew
eral Latin expressions to answer his
needs. 1t is upon this rock that
most former attempts at transla-
ton have been wrecked. Except
for very small number, we be-
lieve we have been able to discov-
er the intended meaning of such
expressions from study of the con-
text, assisted by a very incomplete
glossary prepared by the author
himself, and by an exhaustive in.
vestigation Of the literature of these
subjects during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries"
Although the book comprises $40
pages, printed on sheets z by 10 in
ches. the translators explain that
"the entire work has been re-writ-
ten three times since the original,
and some parts more often" Fur
Their. the printers proof has been
thrice revised"
Africola's work was the first pub
lished the year after his death.
1855. During 100 years it was not
superseded as the textbook and
guide to miners and metallurgists,
for. as the Hoover preface explains
until Schulter's great work on
metllurgy in 1913 it had no equal"
Georgius Agricola was born at
Glauchau, in Saxony, on March "a,
1494. Columbus had recently return
ed to Spain with his great tidings
of a new route to India. Erasmus
was the friend and mentor of the
young Saxon peasant, of whose an
tecedents nothing is known.
Educated at the University of
Leipsic, he taught Latin and Greek
for time, published Latin gram
mar and then studied philosophy
and natural sciences at Bologna
Venice and Padua. In 1927 he was
chosen town physician at Joachins-
thai, Bohemia, in the center of the
richest metal mining district of