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

Dym, Warren Alexander

ISBN 10: 9004186425 / ISBN 13: 9789004186422

Published by Brill Academic Pub, 2010

About this Item

216 pages. 10.00x6.75x1.00 inches. In Stock. This item is printed on demand.

Seller Inventory # __9004186425

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Divining Science: Treasure Hunting and Earth Science in the Early Modern Germany
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004186425
• ISBN 13: 9789004186422
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.5 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Warren Alexander Dym, Ph.D. (2005) in History, University of California, Davis, is presently visiting assistant professor at University of Miami. He publishes on German mining and earth science history.