Georgii Agricolae De re metallica libri XII. qvibus officia, instrumenta, machinae, ac omnia deni ad metallicam spectantia, non modo luculentissimè describuntur, sed & per effigies, suis locis insertas, adiunctis latinis, germanicis appellationibus ita ob oculos ponuntur, ut clarius tradi non possint. Eivsdem De animantibvs svbterraneis liber, ab autore recognitus: cum indicibus diuersis, quicqiuid in opere tractatum est, pulchré demonstrantibus
Georgius Agricola's 1556 Latin treatise De re metallica, printed in Basel, is a systematic manual of mining and metallurgy written for scholars, engineers and mine officials of the period. The four pictures are woodcut scenes of smelting furnaces, ore crushing, horse-powered pumping and hillside washing of ore, drawn with dense parallel hatching and labelled plates a designer could use for industrial texture and period machinery.
