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1. Basics Along with iron, copper, lead, and the precious metals, tin is one of the most important metals, used since prehistoric times (Smelting, by-products of). Its deposits are associated with granite. Economically recoverable mineral deposits are rare [3. 11–17]: in Europe they are concentrated in Cornwall and Devon, along with the “tin province of the Ore Mountains” in the Ore Mountains of Saxony and Bohemia and in the Fichtel Mountains. Other deposits in France (Brittany, Massif Central), on the Iberian Peninsula, in Ita…

1. Drainage tunnelsEspecially in regions with a temperate climate, water management is one of the most important requirements for successful mining. Without provision for water management, it can become impossible to work at a depth of just a few meters. Among the earliest of these provisions are drainage tunnels, which were bored with a slight slope to or into the mineral deposits so that the groundwater could drain out. Throughout the early modern period, such tunnels were incorporated i…

1. Introduction Blasting is using explosives (black powder or gunpowder; other substances only came into use after the early modern period) in mining. Technically, blasting imitates an accident occurring in the military use of black powder, where the squib jams in the barrel of the cannon or gun, which is then often blown apart by the exploding powder charge [4. 55].When rocks and minerals needed to be loosened, holes were bored in the mass. If the borehole was dry, a certain amount of loose powder would be poured into it; if the hole was wet, the powde…

1. Before industrializationAlong with military technology and artistic craftwork (primarily sacral; cf. Crafts), mining was among the sectors of technology and production that produced specialist literature at an early date. Albertus Magnus made a beginning  in 1250 with his  De mineralibus (“On Minerals”); he emphasized that he had access to almost no classical texts on the subject (in fact most are known only by title). Medieval lapidaries (books about precious stones), books about nature, and a few poems repeatedly touched on …

In mining a distinction is made in the context of mining technology between extraction as the separation of minerals from the rock, site preparation with shafts, galleries, and drifts, preparation for extraction, water management and ventilation as auxiliary technologies, and delivery.In the early modern period, efforts were made to combine all mining operations with extraction. Therefore shafts, galleries, and drifts were cut within the mineral deposit if at all possible. But extraction within that deposit weakened the cohes…

Seiger smelters (from German seigern, “separate,” “trickle”) were smelters going back to the 15th century that used a new process – and soon on a large scale – to separate silver from copper (Smelting techniques). Many copper mineral deposits have a certain silver content, such as the deposits in Slovakia, the copper shale of the region around Eisleben and in Poland, and the fahlores of Schwaz-Brixlegg in Tyrol. The earliest Seiger smelter is documented for Nuremberg around 1460; earlier references (Nuremberg and Venice around 1420) are disputed [3. 181]. After 1460, Seiger…

Besides the production of metals like iron, lead, copper, tin, and precious metals, as well as the important copper alloys bronze and brass, operations called smelters – associated with mining and metal smelting (Metal) – produced byproducts of various kinds and engaged in various specialized activities, for example, the production of arsenic. In the industrial age, these forms of production tended to be associated with the chemical industry instead.Sulfur, for example, was produced from the ores of the Rammelsberg near Goslar on the edge of the Harz begin…

1. GeneralAfter extraction the raw products of mining generally need processing to remove the gangue, to sort, purify, and concentrate the valuable material, and to achieve optimum particle size for further utilization. Ore deposits – the most important object of mineral dressing during the early modern period (see Mining 4.1.) – often contain multiple valuable materials. Here the goal was to remove the barren material and separate the various ores (e.g. copper, lead, and zinc ore, and possibly precious metals) as cleanly as possible [9]; [10], since the purer the ore bein…

1. Definition 1.1. TerminologyThe Middle English “minen” (verb) and “mine” (noun) appeared around 1300, deriving from the Old French miner, “to dig,” and referring to the extraction of mineral resources from mineral deposits. These deposits were collectively called fossils (from Latin  (ef)fodere, “dig [out]”) before that term was narrowed in the 19th century to the preserved remains of living creatures of past ages that were often found during the extraction and dressing of mineral resources.German terminology was founded not on the act of digging, but on the ro…

In the early modern period, extraction of metals almost always involved smelting; in Europe, other processes such as amalgamation [2] were employed only for extracting gold. In the first centuries of the period, the latter achieved substantial importance in the extraction of precious metals in Central and South America because of the scarcity of wood and charcoal there. Wet chemical processes were used in assaying, but they found no place in the production of metallic raw materials [1]; [4] apart from the quantitatively insignificant cementation of copper, pr…

Assaying (or docimasy, from Greek  dokimasía, “examination”) is “the use of empirically developed analytic knowledge in the field of metallurgy, casting, and coinage, but also in alchemical and early chemical laboratories, since quantitative testing procedures were needed for the production and testing of salts, mineral acids, alcohols, etc.” (Alchemy) [8. 173]. In use since the Middle Ages, it developed into an independent discipline with its own literature in the 16th century; the first small book on assaying with formulas and instructio…

To be able to turn ores into metals, chains of chemical and physical processes have to be initiated and mastered so that they can be reproduced with assurance. Until well into the 18th century, however, the necessary chemical and physical knowledge was only partially available. Measuring devices and procedures were objectifiable only to a very limited degree. Temperatures could not be measured precisely but only estimated. Only the gold and silver content of ores, intermediate products of smelti…

The ventilation of mining operations includes all the physical and chemical reactions and the means employed in the context of mining technology that serve the following purposes: (1) conveying enough breathable air to the miners and animals working underground, (2) safeguarding the air that the mining lamps need for combustion, (3) dilution and removal of the explosive (“pounding”), stifling (“stagnant”), and noxious (“evil”) gases (s0-called mine air), and mitigating excessive heat by supplying cooler air to create a bearable working temperature [5]. Generation of a…

The term  mining lamp denotes any source of artificial light employed to illuminate the underground spaces created in the mining of mineral resources. The German miners’ term  Geleucht became a common collective term for mining lamps [1]. In comparison to other areas of early modern mining technology, many forms of mining lamps were developed, depending on the type of mining and the region, but until well into the 18th century their construction, function, and fuel were based on principles that had developed in part in prehist…

1. DefinitionThere is no systematic classification of the metals, but many are grouped together on the basis of specific qualities. Among the precious metals, the most important are gold, silver, and the platinum group (ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, rhenium, and platinum). These are the metals that combine with oxygen neither at ordinary nor high temperatures, and do not corrode. Their behavior in combination with acids varies: silver dissolves in nitric acid and concentrated su…

1. Definition and classification Mineral deposits are concentrations of mineral resources (rocks, minerals) that can be exploited economically (Resources, use of). The term came into use in the 18th century [4] and was in common use in the 19th. Previously all the minerals found underground had been called fossils. Depending on their nature and use, mineral deposits can be classified as (1) metal ore (or simply ore) deposits, the basis of metal production; (2) deposits of energy resources (e.g. black coal, lignite, petroleu…

1. GeneralIn the Middle Ages, the term  Markscheidewesen – from Mark (obsolete: “territory, terrain”), Scheide (“boundary”), and Wesen (“entity”) – referred originally only to surveying in the context of mining. At the beginning of the early modern period it came to denote all the surveys and documentation required in mining; the Markscheider is the engineer responsible for all surveys, computations, and representations (plans, graphics) [5]. Measurements in conjunction with structures above and below ground were always a demanding job; carrying them …

1. DefinitionThe term mining technology embraces all the technological methods and tools employed in extracting underground mineral resources. In the 16th century, this technology was already being systematized in a scientific framework, as is especially clear in the work of G. Agricola (1494–1555) [1], which outlined the essential areas of mining technology: sinking shafts and boring drifts, shoring, extraction, haulage, water management, ventilation, illumination, and mine surveying (Markscheidewesen). Agricola also described surfac…

1. Introduction The resurgence of the European population after the plague epidemics of the 14th and 15th centuries, which also brought about a revival of long-distance trade (see Trade, long-distance), led to rising demand for copper, the softness, durability, and malleability of which made it suitable for many different applications (see below, 3.). European expansionism overseas made copper and brass goods important commodities in the Portuguese Africa and Asia trades from the 16th century (World economy) [3. 335, 337, 347 f.]. The development of new refining metho…