Divining Science: Treasure Hunting and Earth Science in Early Modern Germany

The study of German mining and metallurgy has focused overwhelmingly on labor, capitalism, and progressive engineering and earth science. This book addresses prospecting practices and mining culture. Using the divining, or dowsing rod as a means of exposing miner beliefs, it argues that a robust vernacular science preceded institutionalized geology in Saxony, and that the Freiberg Mining Academy (f.1765) became a site for the synthesis of tradition and new science. The tacit knowledge of dowsing was the mark of the experienced prospector, and rather than decline in importance through the Enlightenment, the practice transformed from a study of mineral vapors into an experimental branch of geophysics. Mining administrations openly hired practitioners through the eighteenth century.