Savant Officials in the Prussian Mining Administration

Summary

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Prussian State supported savants who combined learned inquiry into nature with technical work. Members of the physical and mathematical classes of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences were involved in State projects such as surveying for the construction of canals, chemical analysis of Silesian iron, production of porcelain and of beet sugar. Some of these men were truly ‘hybrid’ experts living both in the worlds of State-directed manufacture and academic natural inquiry. Among these savant experts there was a particular sub-group that is at the centre of this paper: mining officials who were also recognized as mineralogists, geologists and chemists. The paper describes and analyses the training and the varied technical and scientific activities of these ‘savant officials’. At the centre of attention are the travels of inspection of the mineralogist and mining official Carl Abraham Gerhard (1738–1821) in the late 1760s. I argue that Gerhard's travels of inspection were at the same time geological travels and that savant officials like Gerhard made a significant contribution to the fledgling science of geology.

Acknowledgements

I thank Johannes Lotze for his careful transcriptions of archival manuscripts. Thanks go also to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science) for his financial support of my archival work. I also express my gratitude to David Oldroyd, Warren Dym, Staffan Müller-Wille and an anonymous referee of this paper for helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

¹For an overview of the Prussian State bureaucracy and governmental system in the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century see Hubert C. Johnson, Frederick the Great and His Officials (New Haven and London, 1975); Eric Dorn Brose, The Politics of Technological Change in Prussia: Out of the Shadow of Antiquity, 1809–1848 (Princeton, 1993); Otto Hintze, ‘Einleitende Darstellung der Behördenorganisation und allgemeinen Verwaltung in Preußen beim Regierungsantritt Friedrichs II.,’ Acta Borussica: Behördenorganisation, vol. 6, part 1 (Berlin, 1901). Talk about government requires specification with respect to an absolutist system. There were two main centers of power in Prussia, the king with his secret cabinet, on the one hand, and the General Directory, in which the collegial system prevailed, on the other hand. Although the king made all final decisions, there was some room for the ministers’ arguments and tactics. On the collegial system, which meant to some extent administration by discussion, see Johnson, Frederick the Great, pp. 19–20.

²Bruno Belhoste has argued that the concept and practice of public service was the result of a long and complicated historical process of ‘depersonalization,’ in which personal service for the sovereign was gradually replaced by public service; Bruno Belhoste, La Formation d'une technocratie. L’École polytechnique et ses élèves de la Révolution au Second Empire (Paris, 2003), 17–30. In Prussia this process began later than in France and was even more complex, as Frederick II firmly held to the principle of royal initiative and control; on the latter issue see Walter L. Dorn, ‘The Prussian Bureaucracy in the Eighteenth-Century II’, Political Science Quarterly, 47 (1) (1932), 75–94; Michael Stolleis, Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, Erster Band: Reichspublizistik und Policeywissenschaft, 1600–1800 (München, 1988).

³The term Ingenieur in a broader sense, not restricted to the artillery, was used more frequently in the German language from the early nineteenth century. I use it to distinguish the technical experts at stake here from artisans and craftsmen who were owners of small workshops and producers of their own goods (see also the conclusion).

⁴See Belhoste, Technocratie (note 2); Michel Foucault, Sécurité, Territoire et Population (Paris, 2004).

⁵See, for example, Pamela H. Smith, The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (Princeton, 1994). In the traditional German mining regions of Saxony, the Harz mountains, and Tyrol, where gold and silver had been extracted since the Middle Ages, early modern mining administrations sometimes offered more permanent positions for university-educated mining experts; see, for example, Walther Herrmann, Bergrat Henckel: ein Wegbereiter der Bergakademie (Berlin, 1962). For additional sites, see Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer, and Peter Dear (eds.), The Mindful Hand. Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialization (Amsterdam, 2007); Ursula Klein and E. C. Spary (eds.), Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe. Between Market and Laboratory (Chicago, 2010); Pamela O. Long, Artisan/Practioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400–1600 (Corvallis, 2011); Matteo Valleriani, Galileo Engineer (Dordrecht, 2010).

⁶See the remarks in note 2; see Long, Artisan/Practioners (note 5); Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, 1993).

⁷I use the term ‘geologist,’ introduced in the nineteenth century, as a convenient shorthand.

⁸Frank Eberhard, ‘Begründer der Berliner Bergakademie: Carl Abraham Gerhard (1738–1821)’, Berlinische Monatsschrift 3 (1997), 75–82.

⁹Alexander von Lyncker, ‘Die Matrikel des preußischen Collegium medico-chirurgicum in Berlin, 1730–1768’, Archiv für Sippenforschung und alle verwandten Gebiete 11 (1934), 129–58, 143. Herbert Lehmann, Das Collegium medico-chirurgicum in Berlin als Lehrstätte der Botanik und der Pharmazie (Berlin, 1936).

¹⁰On Marggraf's appointment see Ursula Klein, ‘Die technowissenschaftlichen Laboratorien der Frühen Neuzeit,’ NTM 16 (2008), 5–38; Ursula Klein, ‘The Laboratory Challenge: Some Revisions of the Standard View of Early Modern Experimentation’, Isis 99 (2008), 769–82.

¹¹Gerhard provided this information on his early teaching in a letter to Minister von Hagen of 9 February 1770. He pointed out that he was examined by members of the Academy before he was allowed to teach; GStA PK (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz), I. HA, Rep. 121 Ministerium für Handel und Gewerbe. Abt. Bergwerks-. Hütten und Salinenwesen, No. 7957, folio 13.

¹²Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.), Acta Borussica. Denkmäler der Preußischen Staatsverwaltung im 18. Jahrhundert, vol. 14 (Berlin, 1934), 476–78. Frederick II had first wanted to hire the Brunswick official and mineralogist Johann Andreas Cramer, who had been a commissioner in Prussian service for several months, but Cramer declined.

¹³In March 1768 members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences had examined Gerhard's knowledge in mineralogy, experimental physics and mechanics in order to answer the question of whether he was able to inspect Prussian mining provinces for the king; see Konrad Wutke, Aus der Vergangenheit des Schlesischen Berg- und Hüttenlebens. Ein Beitrag zur Preußischen Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte des 18./19. Jahrhunderts (Breslau, 1913), 438.

¹⁴Until 1776 Gerhard's annual gratification (Pension) from the Academy of Sciences was 400 Thalers, which corresponded to the salary of a university professor. Beginning in 1770, Gerhard received additional gratifications from the Prussian bureaucracy, first 120 Thalers, after he had been appointed Oberbaurat as well; see Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.), Acta Borussica (note 12), vol. 15, 283–4. From 1786, when he was appointed privy finance councillor (Geheimer Oberfinanzrat), he received an annual salary of 3286 Thalers as an official plus 600 Thalers Pension from the Academy; see Wutke, Vergangenheit (note 13), 437, 441.

¹⁵In 1775 and 1776, for example, Gerhard tested the casting of iron cannons at the iron foundry in Vietz (near Küstrin, Neumark) and in the gun factory in Spandau, near Berlin. In 1779 he was involved in the improvement of iron production in Silesia, which would become the most important producer of iron in the German States within the next two decades. One result of this work was the production in 1782 of the first gun-barrels of Silesian iron, under Gerhard's supervision, produced in the gun manufactory at Spandau; Wutke, Vergangenheit (note 13), 439.

¹⁶Compared to the Freiberg Mining Academy (founded in 1765), the Berlin institution was not a true school or college; see Ursula Klein, ‘Ein Bergrat, zwei Minister und sechs Lehrende. Versuche der Gründung einer Bergakademie in Berlin um 1770’, NTM 4 (2010), 437–68.

¹⁷Carl Abraham Gerhard, Beiträge zur Chymie und Geschichte des Mineralreichs, Erster Theil (Berlin, 1773). In this remark Gerhard mentions time constraints of his scientific work. Writing a book was not part of his obligations and thus had to be done in the evening. Time constraints are also mentioned in another book published in 1781, but in this book Gerhard also points out that Minister von Heynitz had encouraged him to write the book; see Carl Abraham Gerhard, Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs, Erster Theil (Berlin, 1781), VIII, X.

¹⁸See Ursula Klein, ‘The Prussian Mining Official Alexander von Humboldt’, Annals of Science 69 (2012), 27–68.

¹⁹Cited in Wutke, Vergangenheit (note 13), 425, 426. It should be noted that the emphasis is here on Prussia. In the older mining districts of the Holy Roman Empire technical expertise and natural knowledge had long been incorporated in the mining administration (see note 5). The Berlin Mining and Smelting Department directed by Minister vom Hagen emulated to some extent Saxony's mining policy. On Saxony's mining policy see Hans Baumgärtel, Bergbau und Absolutismus: der Sächsische Bergbau in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts und Maßnahmen zu seiner Verbesserung nach dem Siebenjährigen Kriege (Leipzig, 1963); Warren Alexander Dym, Diving Science: Treasure Hunting and Earth Science in Early Modern Germany (Leiden and Boston, 2011); Herrmann, Henckel (note 5); Martin Guntau, Abraham Gottlob Werner (Leipzig, 1984); Andre Wakefield, The Disordered Police State: German Cameralism as Science and Practice (Chicago and London, 2009).

²⁰For additional long-term factors see Peter Konecny's contribution to this special issue. For the Prussian campaign for useful science around 1770 see Klein, Ein Bergrat (note 16).

²¹For the following account see Wutke, Vergangenheit (note 13), 9–12; Hermann Fechner, ‘Geschichte des Schlesischen Berg- und Hüttenwesens in der Zeit Friedrich's des Grossen, Friedrich Wilhelm's II. und Friedrich Wilhelm's III. 1741 bis 1806’, Zeitschrift für das Berg-, Hütten- und Salinen-Wesen im Preussischen Staate 48 (1900), 279–401, esp. 310–11, and vol. 49 (1901), 1–86, 243–88, 383–446, 487–569, esp. 33–44, 55–9; Fechner's dense history of mining and metallurgy in eighteenth-century Silesia is based on archival material from four Breslau archives. For Prussia's more general policy in Silesia see William O. Henderson, The State and the Industrial Revolution in Prussia, 1740–1870 (Liverpool, 1958), 1–21; Hermann Fechner, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Preußischen Provinz Schlesien in der Zeit ihrer provinziellen Selbständigkeit, 1741–1806 (Breslau, 1907).

²²On Reichardt see Johnson, Frederick the Great (note 1).

²³Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 48, 310.

²⁴On similar complaints about bad officials see also Wakefield, Police State (note 19).

²⁵Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 49, 55.

²⁶Quoted in Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 49, 35.

²⁷Quoted in Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 49, 35.

²⁸Quoted in Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 49, 36–37.

²⁹‘Mining masters’ (Oberbergmeister, Bergmeister) were leading mining officials directing a local mining district. To give some examples, at the time Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich von Trebra was a mining master in Saxony (in the area of Marienberg); Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian mining master in the provinces of Ansbach and Bayreuth from 1792 until 1797 (see Klein, Humboldt, note 18).

³⁰There was an old German distinction between mining officials ‘von der Feder,’ who performed mainly paper-and-pencil work, and officials ‘vom Leder,’ who were technical experts visiting mines; the term ‘vom Leder’ refers to the fact that miners wore a leather apron. In 1769, Elster would decide to stay in Prussian service as the chief surveyor (Oberbergamts-Markscheider) in Silesia, see Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 48, 313.

³¹Lehmann received the honorary title ‘mining councillor’ (Bergrat) in 1754, a few months before he was elected as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Unlike Gerhard, he neither got a salary from the mining administration nor a regular pension from the Academy of Sciences. He undertook several commissioned inspection trips on behalf of the General Directory, but he was not subjected to the paper-and-pencil work, official reporting and accounting of ordinary officials; therefore he was not Gerhard's ‘predecessor’ in a proper sense. On Lehmann's travels in general see Bruno v. Freyberg, Johann Gottlob Lehmann (1719–1767): Ein Arzt, Chemiker, Metallurg, Bergmann, Mineraloge und grundlegender Geologe (Erlangen, 1955), 40–3. On Lehmann's travels to Silesia in 1755 and 1756 Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 48, 306; vol. 49, 8–9, 16, 33, 53–5, 246.

³²Johann Gottlob Lehmann, ‘Ohnmaßgeblicher Vorschlag, auf was Art und Weise man zu einer genauern Entdeckung der unter der Erde verborgenen Dinge, oder kurz zu sagen, zu einer unterirdischen Erdbeschreibung gelangen könne’, Physikalische Belustigungen 2, 11 (1752), 27–42. As Lehmann made his living partly by writing and publishing, he regularly contributed to the journal Physikalische Belustigungen, edited by his friend Christoph Mylius in Berlin; see Freyberg, Lehmann (note 31), 36–8.

³³Lehmann, Vorschlag (note 32), 31. On Lehmann's approach and concepts see David Oldroyd, Thinking about the Earth: A History of Ideas in Geology (London, 1996); Rachel Laudan, From Mineralogy to Geology. The Foundations of a Science, 1650–1830 (Chicago and London, 1987).

³⁴Lehmann Vorschlag (note 32), 33, 36.

³⁵Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.), Acta Borussica (note 12), vol. 14, 621.

³⁶See Fechner, Geschichte (note 21) vol. 49, 37–44.

³⁷It should be noted that in the miners’ language, which was taken up by some mineralogists, cobalt meant the raw material, that is, cobalt ore. See Hermann Kopp, Geschichte der Chemie (Hildesheim, 1966), vol. 4, 150–155.

³⁸The history of the material goes back to antiquity. In the early modern period, many different names for the material were in use, depending on varieties of its quality and uses. Its identification long depended on the artisanal context of application rather than on standardized naturalistic criteria or chemical methods. The most common material used to colour glass and ceramics was smalt. Smalt consisted of a mixture of roasted cobalt ore, sand and potash, which was first smelted into a blue glass and then ground in a mill to a powder. Powders of different fineness were sold as different sorts of the pigment. ‘King's blue’ (‘Königsblau’) was a pigment of very high quality, which yielded a beautiful deep azure. See Johann Christian Schedel. Neues und vollständiges, allgemeines Waaren-Lexikon (Offenbach, 1797), vol. 1, 144–8 (entry ‘Blaue Farbe, blaue Smalte’); Kopp, Geschichte (note 37), vol. 4, 152–4.

³⁹Saxony was rich in cobalt ore and exported smalt to England, the Netherlands, and many German states. Its manufacture was secret and strictly regulated by the State. The Saxon State further prohibited the export of raw cobalt ore and controlled trade with smalt. For this and the following paragraph see Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 49, 21–8, 38–9. In the 1750s Prussia's annual expenditure for smalt imported from Saxony was 57,000 Reichsthalers, ibid., 21.

⁴⁰Justi was in Prussian service for only three years. In 1768 he was accused of fraud and jailed; see Wakefield, Police State (note 19).

⁴¹According to Fechner the construction of the workshop for smalt started in May 1772 and was completed in June 1774; Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 50, 271. In his 1771 report to the Academy, Gerhard claimed that the workshop had already started production.

⁴²Carl Abraham Gerhard, ‘Observations physiques et minéralogique sur les montagnes de la Silésie’, Nouveaux Mémoires de L'Académie Royale 1771, 100–111, 106.

⁴³Carl Abraham Gerhard, ‘Nouvelle Méthode d'extraire le Bleu royal de toutes sortes de Cobalt à l'usage des Fabriques de Porcelaine’, Nouveaux Mémoires de L'Académie Royale 1779, 15. See also Wutke, Vergangenheit (note 13), 439.

⁴⁴Wutke, Vergangenheit (note 13), 35, 39. The trip had to be postponed until 1779 because of a war (the bayrisch-österreichischer Erbfolgekrieg).

⁴⁵Wutke, Verangenheit (note 13), 39. The main reason for variations in the quality of smalt seems to have been commercial, as Schaffgotsch reportedly preferred cheap production methods.

⁴⁶Gerhard, Bleu royal (note 43), 12, 15.

⁴⁷Gerhard, Bleu royal (note 43), 13.

⁴⁸Accounting was a regular part of these kinds of reports.

⁴⁹Fechner, Geschichte (note 21), vol. 49, 249. The report even included concrete suggestions about financing for the mining college.

⁵⁰See Peter Konecny in this special issue. In 1770 Minister vom Hagen ordered Gerhard to travel to Freiberg in order to make further inquires about the Mining Academy (see Klein, Ein Bergrat, note 16).

⁵¹For Gerhard's curriculum see GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 121 Ministerium für Handel und Gewerbe. Abt. Bergwerks-. Hütten und Salinenwesen, No. 7957, folios 2–6. See also Klein, Ein Bergrat (note 16).

⁵²Based on barometric measurements, Gerhard determined the altitude of several mountains, sometimes arguing for revisions of previous measurements made by triangulation. Gentleman Saussure was much better equipped than Gerhard with precision instruments and thus measured additional parameters, including humidity and static electricity; see Martin Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time, the Construction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, 1996), 18–19.

⁵³See the ‘Registres’ of the Academy of Sciences from 21 August 1766 to 17 August 1786, GStA PK, I-IV-32.

⁵⁴See the ‘Registres’ of the Academy of Sciences from 21 August 1766 to 17 August 1786, GStA PK, I-IV-32. folio 62: ‘Castillion a lu une lettre de M. Gerhard contenant des details d'Histoire Naturelle de Schlésie.’

⁵⁵See the ‘Registres’ of the Academy of Sciences from 21 August 1766 to 17 August 1786, GStA PK, I-IV-32. folio 62: ‘Castillion a lu une lettre de M. Gerhard contenant des details d'Histoire Naturelle de Schlésie.’ folio 67. In 1780 Gerhard's mineral collection would include some 4,000 specimens; see Günter Hoppe, ‘Zur Geschichte der Geowissenschaften im Museum für Naturkunde zu Berlin. Teil 2: Von der Gründung der Berliner Bergakademie bis zur Gründung der Universität 1770–1810’, Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin 2 (1999), 3–24, on p. 8.

⁵⁶ GStA PK, I–IV-32, folio 68.

⁵⁷ GStA PK, I–IV-32, folio 68. folio 70 (‘M. Gerhard a lu des Remarques physiques & minéralogiques sur les montagnes de Schlésie.’)

⁵⁸Gerhard, Observations (as in note 42), 100; See also Carl Abraham Gerhard, ‘Suite des Observations sur les Montagnes de la Silésie et du Comté de Glaz’, Nouveaux Mémoires de L'Académie Royale 1771, 112–122.

⁵⁹See Laudan, From Mineralogy to Geology (note 33); Oldroyd, Thinking about the Earth (note 33); Rudwick, Bursting (note 52).

⁶⁰Johann Gottlob Lehmann, Versuch einer Geschichte von Flötz-Gebürgen betreffend deren Entstehung, Lage, darinne befndliche Metallen, Mineralien und Fossilien, größtentheils aus eigenen Wahrnehmungen, chymischen und physicalischen Versuchen, und aus den Grundsätzen der Natur-Lehre hergeleitet (Berlin, 1756). Lehmann and Gerhard used the German and French terms ‘Berge,’ ‘Gebirge’ and ‘montagnes’ both in a geographical and geognostic sense; thus their talk of ‘Berge’ (‘montagnes’) and ‘Gebirge’ sometimes meant large subterranean rock masses.

⁶¹On Lehmann's classification of rocks and mountains see Gabriel Gohau, A History of Geology (New Brunswick and London, 1990), 79–81; Oldroyd, Thinking about the Earth (note 33).

⁶²Gerhard, Observations (note 42), 104–05. Here Gerhard's French term ‘structure de montagnes,’ which I have translated ‘structure of rock masses,’ has a geognostic meaning, comparable to Lehmann's ‘innerliche Structur der Berge’; see Lehmann, Versuch einer Geschichte von Flötz-Gebürgen (note 61), 238.

⁶³Gerhard, Observations (note 42), 110.

⁶⁴Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich von Trebra, Erfahrungen vom Innern der Gebirge, nach Beobachtungen gesammelt (Dessau and Leipzig, 1785), II. Trebra's book is famous for its beautiful, colored drawings, one of which is presented here. In his Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs, Erster Theil (Berlin, 1781), Gerhard colored sections of rock strata, but more abstract ones than Trebra.

⁶⁵See Oldroyd, Thinking about the Earth (note 33).

⁶⁶Gerhard, Observations (note 42), 102.

⁶⁷Gerhard, Observations (note 42), 102., 110; Gerhard, Suite (note 58), 117–18.

⁶⁸Gerhard, Observations (note 42), 103.

⁶⁹Gerhard, Observations (note 42), 105.

⁷⁰Gerhard, Suite (note 58), 113.

⁷¹See Gohau, A History (note 61), 69–83; Rudwick, Bursting (note 52), 15–22, 71–84.

⁷²Quoted in Rudwick, ibid., 17.

⁷³Quoted in Rudwick, ibid., 18–19.

⁷⁴‘Geological travel’ is an analytical term. Vaccari has pointed out that the question of what exactly counts as ‘geological travel’ in the eighteenth century is still open to debate. But he has highlighted travel preparations and instructions that focus the traveller's attention on features of the Earth as an important characteristic of ‘geological travels.’ He has further identified four distinctive types of ‘geological travels,’ ranging from short trips by one person to the neighbouring countryside to long overseas expeditions; see Ezio Vaccari, ‘Quelques réflexions sur les instructions scientifiques destinées aux géologues voyageurs aux dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles’, Travaux du Comité Français d'Histoire de la Géologie, Troisième Série (1998), 1–20. See also Martin Guntau, Die Genesis der Geologie als Wissenschaft (Berlin, 1984), 27–9.

⁷⁵Rudwick, Bursting (note 52), 71–84, p. 71.

⁷⁶The term ‘geognosy’ was first introduced by Füchsel and then more systematically used by Werner. Earlier terms for largely the same field of inquiry include subterranean geography or ‘geographia subterrania’ (or ‘unterirdische Erdbeschreibung’, ‘géographie souterraine’).

⁷⁷Rudwick, Bursting (note 52), 84.

⁷⁸The report is reproduced in Baumgärtel, Bergbau und Absolutismus (note 19), 121–92, see p. 136; see also Dym, Divining Science (note 19), 171–5; Wakefield, Police State (note 19), 44–6.

⁷⁹See Walther Herrmann, Bergbau und Kultur: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Freiberger Bergbaus und der Bergakademie (Berlin, 153), 42; Oldroyd, Thinking about the Earth (note 34), 108–9. It should be noted that Martin Rudwick identified Charpentier's Mineralogische Geographie, on the one hand, as a ‘book on the geognosy and mining industry of Saxony,’ but, on the other hand, he conceded that the map included in his book became ‘the standard for geological cartography’ in the early nineteenth century (Rudwick, Bursting, note 52, 85 and 571, footnote 67).

⁸⁰Ezio Vaccari, ‘Mining and Knowledge of the Earth in Eighteenth-Century Italy’, Annals of Science 57 (2000), 163–180. In a similar way Theodore Porter and Hjalmar Fors have shown that the Swedish mining administration promoted chemical mineralogy and analytical chemistry; see Theodore Porter, ‘The Promotion of Mining and the Advancement of Science: the Chemical Revolution of Mineralogy’, Annals of Science 38 (1981), 543–70; Hjalmar Fors, Mutual Favours: The Social and Scientific Practice of Eighteenth-Century Swedish Chemistry (Uppsala, 2003).

⁸¹Carl Abraham Gerhard, Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs, Erster Theil, mit X Kupfertafeln (Berlin, 1781); for the term ‘physische Erdbeschreibung’ see, for example, p. 25. Gerhard also used the term ‘geographiam physicam’ in his official report on his lectures, see GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 121 Ministerium für Handel und Gewerbe. Abt. Bergwerks-. Hütten und Salinenwesen, No. 7958, folio 95. Abraham Gottlob Werner, Short Classification and Description of the Various Rocks, translated with an introduction and notes by Alexander M. Ospovat (New York, 1971). It should be noted that Werner used the term ‘mineralogy’ in a similarly broad fashion as Gerhard; see Alexander M. Ospovat, ‘Notes on the Text’, in Werner, Short Classification (ibid.), 97–144, p. 101.

⁸²Gerhard, Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs (note 81), 197–223. Gerhard's book also contains ten sections of the Saxon mountains, which were coloured in order to facilitate the identification of rock strata.

⁸³Based on his studies in the library and archives of the Freiberg Mining Academy, Ospovat has asserted that Werner was the author of the review. The published review is, however, signed with the initials ‘G. H. I.’ See Alexander M. Ospovat, ‘Appendix II, Werner's Writings’, in Werner, Short Classification (note 81), 170–5, p. 172.

⁸⁴G. H. I., ‘Auszüge und Recensionen neuer Bücher: Karl Abraham Gerhard, Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs, Erster Teil (Berlin 1781)’, Leipziger Magazin zur Naturkunde, Mathematik und Oekonomie (1781), 104–15, 521–8 and (1782), 527–38, on pp. 104–5.

⁸⁵The details concerned issues such as the identification and classification of distinct minerals or the question of whether basalt, considered to be of volcanic origin by both Gerhard and the reviewer, was a crystalline rock or not. Basalt was a key issue in the Neptunist-Vulcanist controversy, and Gerhard disagreed with Werner on this issue. There were further dozens of mineralogical classifications at the time. It is thus not surprising that the reviewer also disagreed with Gerhard. As to Gerhard's theory of the history of the Earth, the reviewer remarked that the issue required a detailed discussion, which was not possible in a review.

⁸⁶In the introduction he mentions, for example, Ignaz Born, Johann Jacob Ferber, Torbern Bergman and Johann Friedrich W. von Charpentier; Gerhard, Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs (note 81), XI.

⁸⁷In the introduction he mentions, for example, Ignaz Born, Johann Jacob Ferber, Torbern Bergman and Johann Friedrich W. von Charpentier; Gerhard, Versuch einer Geschichte des Mineralreichs (note 81), XI., VII, X. Gerhard also points out in the introduction (ibid. VII) that he gave geological (or ‘mineralogical’) lectures since 1778. This is supported by his official report on his teaching in 1778, where he says that he will soon teach ‘geographiam physicam der Gebürge’ (GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 121 Ministerium für Handel und Gewerbe. Abt. Bergwerks-. Hütten und Salinenwesen, No. 7958, folio 95).

⁸⁸Putting it in David Oldroyd's words, ‘the teachers in these institutions were willing to develop views that transcended strictly pragmatic considerations’; Oldroyd, Thinking about the Earth (note 33), 85.

⁸⁹See, for example, Charles Coulston Gillispie, Science and Polity in France. The End of the Old Regime (Princeton, 2004). Gillispie recognized that men like Hellot, Macquer, and Berthollet performed technical work in the context of State administration. However, he argued that these men were forced to make their living this way, since science was not a profession at the time, and further that these men's technical work had nothing to do with their scientific life. For Macquer's mixed scientific and artisanal activities see Christine Lehmann's contribution in this special issue.

⁹⁰See Dym, Divining Science (note 19); Wakefield, Police State (note 19).

⁹¹See the related argument in Popplow's contribution to this special issue.

⁹²See, for example, Robert C. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2009); Margaret J. Jacob, Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West (Oxford, 1977); David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge, 1969); Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins oft he Knowledge Economy (Princeton, 2002); Roberts, Schaffer, and Dear (eds), The Mindful Hand (note 5).

⁹³Attempts to identify such direct links and to conceptualize the impact of science on technology in such a way are still widespread; see, for example, Allen, The British Industrial Revolution (note 92).

⁹⁴See Brose, The Politics of Technological Change in Prussia (note 1); Henderson, Industrial Revolution in Prussia (note 21); Ilja Mieck, Preussische Gewerbepolitik in Berlin, 1806–1844 (Berlin, 1965); Wilhelm Treue, Wirtschafts- und Technikgeschichte Preussens (Berlin, 1984).

⁹⁵Konrad Fuchs, Vom Dirigismus zum Liberalismus: die Entwicklung Oberschlesiens als preußisches Berg- und Hüttenrevier, ein Beitrag zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte Deutschlands im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1970).

⁹⁶See Hans Breil, Friedrich August Alexander Eversmann und die industriell-technologische Entwicklung vornehmlich in Preußen von 1780 bis zum Ausgang der napoleonischen Ära (Dissertation thesis, University of Hamburg, 1977); Wolfhard Weber, Innovationen im frühindustriellen deutschen Bergbau und Hüttenwesen: Friedrich Anton von Heynitz (Göttingen, 1976).

⁹⁷See, for example, Donata Brianta, ‘Education and Training in the Mining Industry, 1750–1860: European Models and the Italian Case’, Annals of Science 57 (2000), 267–300; Klein, Ein Bergrat (note 16); Peter Lundgren, Techniker in Preussen während der frühen Industrialisierung, Ausbildung und Berufsfeld einer entstehenden sozialen Gruppe (Berlin, 1975); Kathryn M. Olesko, ‘Geopolitics & Prussian Technical Education in the Late- Eighteenth Century,’ Actes d'Història de la Ciènca i de la Tèchnica, Nova Època 2 (2009), 11–44.