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Excerpt from Transactions of the International Engineering Congress, 1915 To properly treat this subject would require a large staff of experts; their labors would fill some tens of thousands of pages. In the limited space allowed me I shall mention a few matters that seem interesting and will give some references to publications wherein the desirous student may pursue the subject further. To make an acceptable definition is not easy: broadly speaking, "Mining" is the extraction of metals, minerals, mineral fuels, ores, and structural materials from the earth. In so far as it works in the earth, mining resembles agriculture, and the relative merits of mining and agriculture have been disputed from time immemorial. Agricola devotes several pages to this subject and has practically exhausted it; he finds "that mining is not less noble, though far more profitable than agriculture" and that it is a "calling of peculiar dignity". Agricola's remarks are full of classical quotations and are interesting and profitable reading. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.