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20 [Doc. 4.
GENERAL BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
or at least began to write, treatises on various other subjects,
as we shall presently see by information from foreign countries.
Up to this time he had not entered upon his duties as
Assessor in the Royal College of Mines. He did not desire
to do so before he had thoroughly mastered the science of
mining in its whole extent. We must not place him in the
same category with those, who work themselves into offices
of whose duties they know nothing; or, what is worse, of
which they are able to learn nothing, on the principle that “ out
of nothing, nothing can come". He obtained an office which
he had never solicited. At that time, indeed, he was tho
roughly versed in certain sciences, with which alone he could
have been of great use in his office in some particular branches
of mining ; and it would have been easy for him to acquire
all the remaining knowledge which he still wanted; for those
sciences to which he had hitherto mostly devoted himself,
mathematics and physics, are the pillars of the science of min
ing ; but he could not content himself with theory without
practice. Neither could he satisfy himself with experiment
ing in a chemical laboratory, and acquainting himself with
Swedish mines and their structure, and studying their me
thods of working. For this reason he undertook a second
journey abroad, in 1721, and examined various foreign mines
and smelting- works, particularly those of Saxony and the
Hartz. But he did not examine mines only ; for nothing ever
escaped him that merited the attention of a traveller.
During his stay in the Duchy of Brunswick, he enjoyed
the particular favour of Duke Ludwig Rudolph15, and the
Duke, in consequence, bore the expenses of his journey in his
dominions, and upon taking leave presented him with his
medallion in gold, and with a piece of plate.
During this journey he acquired new stores of knowledge,
and enriched science with the following new works:
1. Prodromus principiorum rerum naturalium , sive novorum
tentaminum chemiam et physicam experimentalem geometrice
explicandi.
2. Nova observata et inventa circa ferrum et ignem, præ
cipue naturam ignis elementarem , una cum nova camini in
ventione
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