Georg Bauer, better known as Agricola, spent most of his adult life as a physician in the mining region of Joachimsthal in Bohemia. There he observed first-hand every aspect of mines, mining, and minerals. His subjects include, among other things, administration, prospecting, equipment, diseases of the lung, ventilation, ore transportation, soil erosion, and descriptions of eighty different minerals and metallic ore. The book contains 273 splendid woodcuts by Rudolf Manuel Deutsch.