De metallorum ortu & causis

-ces Georgius Agricola Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) was a German scholar known as the father of mineralogy. distinguished it, namely into gold aurum, silver argentum, copper æs, iron ferrum, white lead plumbum album an old term for tin, which we today call tin stannum, and another black lead plumbum nigrum, commonly called lead. Then he adds antimony stibium and quicksilver argentum vivum mercury. Others truly divide them into more, such as Ammonius Likely referring to a commentator on natural philosophy or a late antique scholar., who thought many species of metals were unknown to us, just as with animals and plants. The Chemists, however, content with fewer, recognized only six metals, namely gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead, omitting the others. Regarding quicksilver (I would say this with all due respect to Georgius Agricola, however learned a man he may be), I do not see many reasons why it should be numbered among the metals. First, because it does not fit the definition and form of a metal. For it is not hard, nor by any art does it congeal into the hardness or form of a metal, ne-