"While Paracelsus was pressing his doctrines on all sides, and endeavouring to lead chemistry into a new channel, another, Agricola, was quietly at work among the mines of Saxony, utterly indifferent to all but the advance of his science. It is to Agricola's systematic observations that we trace the beginnings of the science of mineralogy. In metallurgy, also, he was a pioneer, the first to give a clear and succinct account of the preparation of many metals. He taught the condensation and purification of sulphur given off during the roasting of many s, the separation of silver from gold by means of nitric and sulphuric acid, the preparation of such bodies as salt, , and saltpetre on a large scale. The apparatus described by Agricola and employed by him for the and testing of ores were still in use at the end of the eighteenth century. Agricola stands out solitary among the men of his time as one pursuing chemistry from pure love of the science; his work had no other aim than the increase of knowledge."