Glassmaking furnace, c 1500.

Model of glass furnace as described by Agricola, 16th century. Georgius Agricola is the latin name of Georg Bauer who was a German mineralogist and metallurgist and was born in Glauchau, Saxony. As a practising physician in Chemnitz, he became interested in the link between medicine and minerals.This led him to devote himself to the study of mining and he became Germany's first systematic mineralogist. His "De Re Metallica" (1555, translated by US President Herbert Hoover in 1912) is a valuable and detailed record of 16th century mining, ore-smelting and metal working.