Georgii Agricolae medici Bermannus, sive de re metallica

...a certain collection of books which he arranged concerning metallic matters. Immortal God, what diligence of the man, what labor, what sharp judgment was evident there! Whatever all writers, both ancient and more recent, Greek and Latin, have left written about metals, which indeed has remained after such a destruction of books, this man alone discusses most accurately, and weighs them diligently with those things that can be seen in the mines of Germany, and specifically in this Valley Joachimsthal, or St. Joachim's Valley. He has recalled into the light not a few things that were once held in the greatest use of healing by the most outstanding physicians, from the deepest darkness, or to speak more truly, from the very underworld to which they had been submerged. But because the material of those books lay scattered and unorganized, I did not dare to touch any of them for publication, especially with Agricola himself promising that he would not one day defraud scholars of the fruit of the same. In the meantime, I thought I would fulfill my duty toward letters and learned men if I published the dialogue which the same man wrote on the same subject for learned men to read. In which matter, as I trust that I will earn great thanks from every best reader...