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612-822-4611
Divining Science: Treasure Hunting and Earth Science in Early Modern Germany

Divining Science: Treasure Hunting and Earth Science in Early Modern Germany

Hardcover

Series: Studies in Central European Histories, Book 52

Medieval & Renaissance History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 9004186425
ISBN13: 9789004186422
Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
Published: Sep 24 2010
Pages: 230
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.50 Depth: 9.50
Language: English
The study of German mining and metallurgy has focused overwhelmingly on labor, capitalism, and progressive engineering and earth science. This book addresses prospecting practices and mining culture. Using the divining, or dowsing rod as a means of exposing miner beliefs, it argues that a robust vernacular science preceded institutionalized geology in Saxony, and that the Freiberg Mining Academy (f.1765) became a site for the synthesis of tradition and new science. The tacit knowledge of dowsing was the mark of the experienced prospector, and rather than decline in importance through the Enlightenment, the practice transformed from a study of mineral vapors into an experimental branch of geophysics. Mining administrations openly hired practitioners through the eighteenth century.

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Medieval & Renaissance History