georg agricola
Georg Agricola, the scientist known as the “father of mineralogy”, was born March 24, 1494 in Glauchau, Germany. ... Not much is known about Georg Agricola’s parents except that his father may have been in the merchant business or an artisan known by the name of Gregor Bauer. Agricola spent all of his life in Germany. ... Georg Agricola’s main book was De re metallica, published in 1556, where, among other things, Agricola surveys historical and classical allusions to metals and assesses the content and distribution of metal mines in ancient times.