The Prussian Mining Official Alexander von Humboldt

Summary

From summer 1792 until spring 1797, Alexander von Humboldt was a mining official in the Franconian parts of Prussia. He visited mines, inspected smelting works, calculated budgets, wrote official reports, founded a mining school, performed technological experiments, and invented a miners’ lamp and respirator. At the same time he also participated in the Republic of Letters, corresponded with savants in all Europe, and was a member of the Leopoldine Carolinian Academy and the Berlin Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde. He collected minerals, made geognostic observations, performed chemical and physiological experiments, read the newest scientific journals, and prepared and published texts on mineralogy, geognosy, chemistry, botany and physiology. Humboldt did his scientific investigations alongside his administrative and technical work. This raises the question of whether there were fruitful interactions between Humboldt's technical-administrative work and (parts of) his natural inquiry. I argue that the mining official Humboldt was a late eighteenth-century figure of hybrid savant-technician. Mines and smelting works provided numerous opportunities for studies of nature. Humboldt systematically used inspection tours for mineralogical and geognostic observations. He transformed mines into chemical laboratories, and he transferred knowledge and material items from his natural inquiries in mines to academic institutions. The main objective of this paper is to illuminate the persona of savant-technician (or scientific-technological expert) along with Humboldt's mixed technological and scientific work during his term as mining official.

Acknowledgements

I thank Johannes Lotzes for his careful transcription of Humboldt's manuscript. Thanks also go to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science) for his financial support of my archival work.

Notes

¹Ilse Jahn and Fritz G. Lange, Die Jugendbriefe Alexander von Humboldts, 1787–1799, herausgegeben und erläutert von Ilse Jahn und Fritz G. Lange (Berlin, 1973), 137–138 (137). Jahn and Lange collected altogether 480 letters to and from Humboldt in the period 1787–1799, the vast majority being written by Humboldt himself. All translations are mine, unless otherwise specified.

²For Humboldt's early career see Hans Baumgärtel, ‘Alexander von Humboldt und der Bergbau’, in Alexander von Humboldt 14. 9. 1769 – 6.5. 1859, Gedenkschrift zur 100. Wiederkehr seines Todestages, edited by the Alexander von Humboldt-Kommission der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin, 1959), 1–35; Hanno Beck, Alexander von Humboldt, Band 1: Von der Bildungsreise zur Forschungsreise, 1769–1804, (Wiesbaden, 1959); Karl Bruhns, Alexander von Humboldt, eine wissenschaftliche Biographie, 3vols. (Osnabrück, 1969 [1872]), vol. 1; Herbert Kühnert, ‘Einleitung’, in Alexander von Humboldt: Über den Zustand des Bergbaus und Hütten-Wesens in den Fürstentümern Bayreuth und Ansbach im Jahre 1792, eingeleitet und bearbeitet von Herbert Kühnert (Berlin 1959), 9–72; Kurt Schleucher, Alexander von Humboldt, der Mensch, der Forscher, der Schriftsteller (Darmstadt, 1985); Herbert Scurla, Alexander von Humboldt, sein Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1955).

³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 137.

⁴In the eighteenth-century German lands good governance was often designated ‘gute Policey.‘ On this concept see Michael Stolleis, Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, Erster Band: Reichspubliztistik und Policeywissenschaft, 1600–1800 (München, 1988).

⁵On Heynitz see Wolfard Weber, Innovationen im frühindustriellen deutschen Bergbau und Hüttenwesen, Friedrich Anton von Heynitz (Göttingen, 1976). Cameralism or Cameralwissenschaft was the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science of the state's finances and administration, which sometimes, depending on the individual author, involved more comprehensive economical, political and juridical theories. The term is derived from Kammer (chamber), the most important part of the bureaucracy, responsible for the administration of the state's finances. There is a host of books and essays on German cameralism; one of the best books in English still is Alboin W. Small, The Cameralists, the Pioneers of German Social Policy (New York, 1964 [1909]); and, more recently, Andre Wakefield, The Disordered Police State, German Cameralism as Science and Practice (Chicago, 2008). For the organization of the eighteenth-century Prussian bureaucracy see Walter L. Dorn, ‘The Prussian Bureaucracy in the Eighteenth-Century’, Political Science Quarterly 46 (3) 1931: 403–423; Walter L. Dorn, ‘The Prussian Bureaucracy in the Eighteenth-Century II’, Political Science Quarterly, 47 (1) (1932), 75–94; Hubert C. Johnson, Frederick the Great and His Officials (New Haven and London, 1975).

⁶A more detailed discussion of the question of how the seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century cameralist theories were transformed in the course of the eighteenth century, and how the late eighteenth-century cameralists differed from earlier ones, is beyond the scope of this paper (see also note 9).

⁷I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 138.

⁸Ken Alder, Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763–1815 (Princeton, 1997); Bruno Belhoste, La Formation d'une technocratie. L’École polytechnique and ses élèves de la Révolution au Second Empire (Paris, 2003); Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, L'invention technique au siècle des Lumières (Paris, 2000); Isabelle Laboulais, La maison des mines dans le Paris de la Révolution et de l'Empire, thèse d'habilitation, Université Paris 7, 2010; Janis Langins, Conserving the Enlightenment, French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution (Cambridge/Mass., 2004); Antoine Picon, L'invention de l'ingénieur moderne, l’école des ponts et chausses 1747–1851 (Paris, 1992); Patrice Pret, L’état, l'armée, la science, l'invention de la recherche publique en France 1763–1830 (Paris, 2002); André Thépot, Les ingénieurs des mines du XIX ^e siècle, histoire d'un corps technique d’État 1810–1914 (Paris, 1998); Hélène Vérin, La gloire des ingénieurs, l'intelligence technique du XVI ^e aus XVIII ^e siècle (Paris, 1993).

⁹The comparison makes sense not only from a structural-analytical point of view but also based on particular historical circumstances. For the Prussian elite, France was a model in many respects, first a predominantly positive one during the reign of Frederick II, then a predominantly negative one after the Napoleonic Wars. For specificities of the French concept of ‘service public’ see B. Belhoste (note 8), 17–30. Bruno Belhoste has argued that there was a long process of ‘depersonalization’ of state service in eighteenth-century France, accelerating in the French Revolution, in which service shifted away from personal service for the sovereign (and of the sovereign) and toward a function within the corporative state administrations; B. Belhoste (note 8, 18). A similar process also took place in Prussia after the Seven-Years War, although Frederick II firmly held to the principle of royal initiative and control, and this process was accompanied by conceptual transformations in the cameralist literature; see W. L. Dorn, ‘The Prussian Bureaucracy in the Eighteenth-Century II’ (note 5), and M. Stolleis (note 4). It is beyond the scope of this paper to study in any detail the question of how the process of depersonalization affected the German cameralist discourse and to compare the latter with the French discourse on economy and governance (or governmentality); on the latter issue see Michel Foucault, Sécurité, Territoire et Population (Paris, 2004).

¹⁰Paul Krusch, Die Geschichte der Bergakademie zu Berlin von Ihrer Gründung im Jahre 1770 bis zur Neueinrichtung im Jahre 1860 (Berlin, 1904); Ursula Klein, ‘Ein Bergrat, zwei Minister und sechs Lehrende, Versuche zur Gründung einer Bergakademie in Berlin um 1770’, NTM 18 (4) (2010).

¹¹It should be noted that throughout the nineteenth century the Prussian technical schools and academies never achieved the same powerful status as the grandes écoles in France. They remained subordinated in social and epistemic prestige to the universities. This relationship of subordination was prepared in the eighteenth century. Frederick II and most eighteenth-century Prussian ministers regarded universities as an alternative to the foundation of new technical schools. The main reason for this was money; it was cheaper. After the Seven-Years War the Prussian bureaucracy continually intervened in universities requesting reforms and the teaching of ‘useful sciences.’ The Prussian universities ‘accommodated’ to this pressure and integrated technological knowledge, while the technical schools did not receive sufficient financial means to flourish.

¹²This argument has recently been repeated by A. Wakefield (note 5).

¹³Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers. The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, 1995), 50–51, 89.

¹⁴The German term Naturphilosoph referred to professors of philosophy like Christian Wolff and Immanuel Kant. Instead, men of science like Humboldt were designated Naturforscher. The term Naturforscher had a similar, but broader meaning than the English ‘naturalist.’ The eighteenth-century German term Naturphilosophie had a more distinctive meaning than the English ‘natural philosophy,’ being a branch of philosophy taught at universities. Apart from these linguistic differences, the designation ‘natural philosopher’ is inappropriate for figures like Humboldt for other reasons, which will be clarified, I hope, in the following.

¹⁵B. Belhoste (note 8), 75.

¹⁶I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 144.

¹⁷I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 145, 154, 174.

¹⁸On ‘Humboldtian science’ see Susan Faye Cannon, Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period (New York, 1978); Michael Dettelbach, ‘Humboldtian Science’, in Cultures of Natural History, edited by N. Jardine, J. A. Secord und E. C. Spary (Cambridge, 1996), 287–304.

¹⁹K. Bruhns (note 2), 1, 134–35.

²⁰Humboldt had first met Carl Freiesleben (1774–1846) in Freiberg. He came from an old Freiberg family of mining officials and was also a student at the Freiberg Mining Academy. Humboldt and Freiesleben undertook all practical work together and became very close friends; they corresponded for decades.

²¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 175.

²²I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 175.

²³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 175.

²⁴Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich von Trebra, Bergmeister-Leben und Wirken in Marienberg, vom 1. Decbr. 1767 bis August 1779 (Freyberg, 1818), 11.

²⁵Quoted after Gerhard Schulz, ‘Die Berufslaufbahn Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Novalis)’, in Jahrbuch der Schillergesellschaft 7 (1963), 253–312 (275). In 1794, Novalis's father wanted his son to become a Prussian official, and for this purpose he negotiated with Humboldt's superior Karl August von Hardenberg. Hardenberg hesitated, with the result that Novalis first continued his practical training for a year in the town of Tennstedt, then entered civil service in the administration of Saxon salines, and then studied at the Freiberg Mining Academy from 1797–99 (ibid.).

²⁶Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit’ in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche, edited by Klaus-Detelef Müller (Frankfurt 1985–1999), 40 vols., vol. 14, 457.

²⁷See Albrecht Timm, Kleine Geschichte der Technologie (Stuttgart, 1964), 66; and Immanuel Kant, ‘Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft’, in Kants Werke vol. 4, Akademie Textausgabe, (Berlin, 1968), 465–566.

²⁸See H. Baumgärtel (note 2); Ortulf Reuter, Die Manufaktur im Fränkischen Raum. Eine Untersuchung großbetrieblicher Anfänge in den Fürstentümern Ansbach und Bayreuth als Beitrag zur Gewerbegeschichte des 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1961); Fritz Hartung, Hardenberg und die preußische Verwaltung in Ansbach-Bayreuth von 1792 bis 1806 (Tübingen, 1906); Oskar Köhl, Zur Geschichte des Bergbaus im vormaligen Fürstentume Kulmbach-Bayreuth mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der zum Frankenwalde gehörigen Gebiete, eine kulturgeschichtliche Studie (Hof, 1913); Rudolf Endres, ‘Alexander von Humboldt in Franken’, in Alexander von Humboldt, Weltbild und Wirkung auf die Wissenschaften, edited by Uta Lindgren (Köln and Wien, 1990), 39–59; Rudolf Endres, ‘Alexander von Humboldt und Franken’, in Beiträge zur Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschung vol. 18, Studia Fribergensia, edited by Kurt-R. Biermann, Conrad Grau and Christian Suckow (Berlin, 1994), 31–38; Michael Dettelbach, ‘Describing the Nation: Local and Universal in Humboldt's Administrative Practice and in late 18th Century Cameralism’, unpublished manuscript; I thank Michael Dettelbach for making his manuscript available for me.

²⁹On the Prussian salt works see Jakob Vogel, Ein schillerndes Kristall: eine Wissenschaftsgeschichte des Salzes zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Moderne (Köln, 2008); according to Vogel the Prussian salt works were fully integrated into the system of state administration only in the 1790s.

³⁰The saltworks in Gerabronn were not reopened; see Karl August von Hardenberg, ‘Peruses inner Politik in Ansbach und Bayreuth in den Jahren 1792–1797’, in Christian Meyer, Hardenberg und seine Verwaltung der Fürstenthümer Ansbach und Bayreuth (Breslau, 1892), 25–159 (105).

³¹Alexander von Humboldt, ‘Versuch über einige physikalische und chemische Grundsätze der Salzwerkskunde’, Bergmännisches Journal 5 (1792) vol. 1, part 1, 1–45, part 2, 97–141.

³²H. Kühnert (note 2), 25–26. On Klaproth see Edmud Dann, Martin Heinrich Klaproth 1743–1817 (Berlin, 1958).

³³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 140.

³⁴See K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 98.

³⁵See 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), 25–26; Max Schulz-Briesen, Der preußische Staatsbergbau von seinen Anfängen bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1933), 28–29; Christoph Bartels, Vom frühneuzeitlichen Montangewerbe zur Bergbauindustrie (Bochum, 1992), 276.

³⁶P. Krusch (note 10), U. Klein (note 10).

³⁷O. Köhl (note 28), 56–57, 104–108; O. Reuter (note 28), 126–127.

³⁸O. Köhl (note 28), 105.

³⁹Report of the Prussian mining councillor Friedrich Philipp Rosenstiel ‘Acta: Den Zustand des Bergbaus im Fürstenthum Bayreuth und die zu dessen Emporbringung getroffene Massregeln betr[effend]‘, Geheimes Preußisches Staatsarchiv GStA PK, II. HA, Abt. 36 Fränkisches Department, Rep. VII, Nr. 34, folio 2–17.

⁴⁰Alexander von Humboldt, ‘Kurze Darstellung der gegenwärtigen Verhältniße des Bergbaus in den Fränkischen Fürstenthümern’, in ‘Acta: Eine Darstellung von dem Zustande des Bergbaues in den Fränk. Fürstenthümern, v. Humboldt, 1797’, Geheimes Preußisches Staatsarchiv GStA PK, II. HA Gen. Dir. Ansbach-Bayreuth VII, Nr. 34a, folio 2–30 (folio 3); in the following quoted as A. v. Humboldt 1797. See also K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 98 (here Tornesi's name is spelled Jornesi).

⁴¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 213.

⁴²I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 218.

⁴³Humboldt's report has been transcribed and published by H. Kühnert: Alexander von Humboldt, ‘Bericht: Über den Zustand des Bergbaus und Hütten-Wesens in den Fürstentümern Bayreuth und Ansbach nebst Beilagen über die Saline zu Gerabronn und Schwäbisch-Hall, die Porzellan-Fabrik zu Bruckberg, das Vitriolwerk am Schwefelloch, die Natur des Eisens, der Smalte und die Entstehung der Schwefel-Säure bei der Alaun- und Vitriolfabrikation: vom 12. Juli bis 5. August 1792, eingereicht von dem Ober-Bergmeister A. v. Humboldt mittels Berichts vom 17. April 1793’ in Alexander von Humboldt: Über den Zustand des Bergbaus und Hütten-Wesens in den Fürstentümern Bayreuth und Ansbach im Jahre 1792, introduced and edited by Herbert Kühnert (Berlin 1959), 73–216; in the following quoted as A. v. Humboldt 1792 b).

⁴⁴T. Porter 1995 (note 13), 50,

⁴⁵A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 75.

⁴⁶For example, in late July 1792, he wrote to Christian August S. Hoffmann, gemstone inspector in Freiberg: ‘If there is any region of our Fatherland that deserves the most precise geognostic investigation, especially with respect to layering and stratification, it is certainly this part of the Fichtelgebirge. I cannot now impart to you anything general and coherent, but only single, fragmented observations. Perhaps with more leisure I will be able to develop these further and lead to more decisive results.’ I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 207.

⁴⁷A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 101.

⁴⁸A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 101.

⁴⁹A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 101–103.

⁵⁰A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 139.

⁵¹A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 87, 140.

⁵²A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 140.

⁵³A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 142.

⁵⁴Ch. Bartels (note 35), 120–22; Otfried Wagenbreth, ‘Die Technik des sächsischen Erzbergbaus um 1800 aus dem Blickwinkel Alexander von Humboldts’, in: Beiträge zur Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschung vol. 18, Studia Fribergensia, edited by Kurt-R. Biermann, Conrad Grau und Christian Suckow (Berlin, 1994), 339–347 (341).

⁵⁵A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 144.

⁵⁶A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 145.

⁵⁷A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 3; Humboldt here means Carl Freiherr von Bothmer (1736–1803).

⁵⁸I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 210.

⁵⁹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 209.

⁶⁰I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 211.

⁶¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 211.

⁶⁴I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 220.

⁶²For Humboldt's ‘halurgical travel’ see also H. Beck (note 2), 51–53.

⁶³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 217.

⁶⁵Humboldt added a sketch in his letter, I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 221.

⁶⁶I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 218.

⁶⁷I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 251.

⁶⁸K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 98.

⁶⁹K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 98.

⁷⁰A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 124–131.

⁷¹A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 124.

⁷²A. v. Humboldt 1792 b (note 43), 127.

⁷³In his letters and reports Humboldt did not provide detailed technical information about these amalgamation experiments.

⁷⁴I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 310.

⁷⁵Walter Schellhas, ‘Alexander von Humboldt und Freiberg in Sachsen’, in Alexander von Humboldt 14. 9. 1769 – 6.5. 1859, Gedenkschrift zur 100. Wiederkehr seines Todestages, edited by the Alexander von Humboldt-Kommission der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin, 1959), 337–422 (351, 363–64); O. Wagenbreth (note 54), 80.

⁷⁶Mikulás Teich, ‘Born's amalgamation process and the international metallurgical gathering at Skleno in 1786’, Annals of Science 32 (1975), 305–340.

⁷⁷K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 100–101; Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 8–10, 26.

⁷⁸I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 275. On 20 June 1793 Humboldt had become a member of the Leopoldine Carolinian Academy (Kaiserlich Leopoldinisch-Karolinische Akademie der Naturforscher).

⁷⁹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 334.

⁸⁰I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 335.

⁸²I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 346.

⁸¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 344.

⁸³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 352.

⁸⁴I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 361–364.

⁸⁵See Martin Rudwick, Worlds Before Adam, The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform (Chicago, 2007), 36–39.

⁸⁶I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 378, my emphasis.

⁸⁷I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 335.

⁸⁸See Kant's preface in Immanuel Kant, ‘Der Streit der Fakultäten’, in Kants Werke, vol. 7, Akademie Textausgabe, (Berlin, 1968), 5–116, (5–11).

⁸⁹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 151.

⁹⁰See also H. Beck (note 2), 68–73, 81–83; Beck concluded that Humboldt's relinquishment of civil survive ‘must be understood as a rebuttal of the absolutist state.’ (ibid. 83).

⁹¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 378.

⁹²K. Bruhns (note 2), 162.

⁹³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 400.

⁹⁴I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 413.

⁹⁶Quoted after K. Bruhns (note 2), 164, my emphasis.

⁹⁵K. Bruhns (note 2), 163–64.

⁹⁷See B. Belhoste (note 8); T. Porter (note 13).

⁹⁸B. Belhoste (note 8), 18.

¹⁰⁰Bruhns (note 2), 165, my emphasis.

⁹⁹H. Kühnert (note 2), 55.

¹⁰¹H. Kühnert (note 2), 58.

¹⁰²I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 487–488.

¹⁰⁷I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 504.

¹⁰³See Alexander von Humboldt, ‘Ueber die einfache Vorrichtung, durch welche sich Menschen stundenlang in irrespirablen Gasarten, ohne Nachtheil der Gesundheit, und mit brennenden Lichtern aufhalten können; oder vorläufige Anzeige einer Rettungsflasche und eines Lichterhalters. Aus einem Briefe des Hrn. Oberbergraths von Humboldt an den Herrn Berghauptmann von Treba, in Chemische Annalen 13 (1796), vol. 2, 99–110, 195–210; This paper was followed by two additional publications on his inventions in 1797 und 1799. See also Ernst H. Berninger, ‘Humboldts technische Erfindungen und Neuerungen für den Bergbau’, in Alexander von Humboldt, Weltbild und Wirkung auf die Wissenschaften, edited by Uta Lindgren (Köln and Wien, 1990), 133–150.

¹⁰⁴See also H. Baumgärtel (note 2), 27–29.

¹⁰⁵See Christopher Duffy, The Army of Frederick the Great (Newton Abbot, London and Vancouver, 1974), 125–126; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1996), 13–14.

¹⁰⁶I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 535.

¹⁰⁸In April 1796, Humboldt wrote to another friend, ‘I have constructed a respirator and a rescue bottle, through which the suffocated can be brought out of the pits instantly, and also a lamp that burns brightly in every kind of air. The corps de mineurs approved it here. The invention is useful’ (I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 507.

¹⁰⁹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 534.

¹¹⁰Leslie Tomory, ‘The origins of Gaslight Technology in Eighteenth-Century Pneumatic Chemistry’, in Annals of Science 66 (2009), 473–96.

¹¹¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 524. For Humboldt's use of the eudiometer see also Michael Dettelbach, ‘The Face of Nature: Precise Measurement, Mapping, and Sensibility in the Work of Alexander von Humboldt’, in Studies in the History of Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Sciences 30 (1999), 473–504.

¹¹²I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 161.

¹¹³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 183–84.

¹¹⁴I. Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe (note 27), preface, 467–79. Kant's preface has often been misinterpreted as an argument that chemistry was a mere art and not a science. This interpretation ignores Kant's distinctive concept of Naturwissenschaft, introduced after a long discussion of the meaning of this concept. At the end of this discussion, Kant actually stated that chemistry was not a ‘science in the strict sense (in strengem Sinne)’ and therefore might rather be called an art. However, Kant did not argue here for the ancient distinction between science (scientica) and art (ars) but rather for a more differentiated system of forms of reliable knowledge. Kant embedded chemistry in his system of forms of reliable knowledge, and even characterized chemistry at the beginning of his discussion as a ‘rational science.’

¹¹⁵Thus Lavoisier stated in his Traité élémentaire de Chimie (1789), ‘All that can be said upon the number and nature of elements is, in my opinion, confined to discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature’; Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry, in a New Systematic Order, Containing all Modern Discoveries (New York, 1965 [1790]), XXIV.

¹¹⁶T. Porter (note 13), 18. This attitude continued well into the nineteenth century. For example, chemists’ adoption of Berzelius formulas in the 1830s was also a way to avoid theoretical commitments involved in the Daltionian atomic theory; see Ursula Klein, Experiments, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford 2003).

¹¹⁷For a short biography of Wiegleb and Westrumb see Karl Hufbauer, The Formation of the German Chemical community, 1720–1795 (Berkeley 1982). For the hybrid figure of eighteenth-century German apothecary-chemists see Ursula Klein, ‘Apothecary's Shops, Laboratories and Chemical Manufacture in Eighteenth-Century Germany, in The Mindful Hand, Inquiry and Invention from the late Renaissance to Early Industrialisation, edited by Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer and Peter Dear (Amsterdam, 2007), 247–278; Ursula Klein, ‘Blending Technical Innovation and Learned Natural Knowledge: The Making of Ethers’, in Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe, edited by Ursula Klein and Emma C. Spary (Chicago, 2010), 125–157.

¹¹⁸See T. Porter (note 13), 18.

¹¹⁹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 525. See also A. v. Humboldt 1792b (note 43), 208 (for the antiphlogistic terminology), 212 (for the phlogistic terminology), 215 (for both terminologies).

¹²¹I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 529.

¹²²I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 529.

¹²⁰I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 520.

¹²³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 533.

¹²⁵I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 533.

¹²⁴I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 782.

¹²⁶Wilhelm von Humboldt 1799, ‘Vorrede’, in Alexander von Humboldt, Ueber die unterirdischen Gasarten und die Mittel ihren Nachtheil zu vermindern. Ein Beytrag zur Physik der praktischen Bergbaukunde (Braunschweig, 1799), III–VI (IV).

¹²⁷W. Schellhas (note 75), 394.

¹²⁸A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40). Humboldt's report was written by a clerk and signed by Humboldt (folio 24). It is preceeded by a letter by Humboldt (in French) from 24 February 1797, in which he states that the original report was three times revised (folio 1). The main part of the report is supplemented by 21 notes by Humboldt, written between 1795 and 97 (folio 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21), and of tables.

¹²⁹See Hardenberg's report of 10 June 1797: K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30).

¹³⁰Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 2, 12, 18.

¹³¹Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 24.

¹³²Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 24.

¹³³Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 6.

¹³⁴Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 6; K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 98.

¹³⁵A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 6.

¹³⁶Quoted after O. Köhl (note 28), 125–26.

¹³⁷A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 6.

¹³⁸See Rudolf Borch, Alexander von Humboldt, sein Leben in Selbstzeugnissen, Briefen und Berichten (Berlin, 1948), 82.

¹³⁹A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 7.

¹⁴¹A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 15 (note added after 1794).

¹⁴²A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 14.

¹⁴⁰A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 8–9, 10 (note added after 1794), 26 (table). See also K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 100–101.

¹⁴³I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 311.

¹⁴⁴A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), 19 (note added after 1794).

¹⁴⁵A. v. Humboldt 1797 (note 40), folio 18.

¹⁴⁶However, unlike the physiocrate's emphasis on the economic importance of agriculture, Heynitz argued that economic value was also created in manufacture and the arts and crafts; see W. Weber (note 5), 181.

¹⁴⁷Friedrich Anton von Heynitz, Tabellen über die Staatswirthschaft eines europäischen Staates der vierten Größe, nebst Betrachtungen über dieselben. Aus dem Französischen (Leipzig, 1786), 3.

¹⁴⁸See W. Weber (note 5), 181–189.

¹⁴⁹K. A. v. Hardenberg in Meyer (note 30), 152–59.

¹⁵⁰Karl Heinrich Kaufhold, Das Gewerbe in Preußen um 1800 (Göttingen, 1978), 11–16, 472–480. See also Otto Behre, Geschichte der Statistik in Brandenburg-Preußen bis zur Gründung des Königlichen Statistischen Bureaus (Berlin, 1905); Richrd Boeck, Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der amtlichen Statistik des preußischen Staates (Berlin, 1863).

¹⁵¹Humboldt on 17. May 1792, I. Jahn and Lange (note 1), 188.

¹⁵²Quoted after Beck (note 2), 50.

¹⁵³For a good overview of eighteenth-century mining and the knowledge of mining officials in Europe see Donata Brianta, ‘Education and Training in the Mining Industry, 1750–1860: European Models and the Italian Case’, in Annals of Science 57 (2000), 267–300. For the Italian case see also Ezi Vaccari, ‘Mining and Knowledge of the Earth in Eighteenth-Century Italy’, Annals of Science 57 (2000), 163–180. For France A. Thépot, and I. Laboulais (note 8). For Sweden, Theodore M. Porter, ‘The Promotion of Mining and the Advancement of Science: The Chemical Revolution of Mineralogy’ Annals of Science 38 (1981), 543–570; Hjalmar Fors, Mutual Favors: The Social and Scientific Practice of Eighteenth-Century Swedish Chemistry (Uppsala 2003). For Norway Björn Ivar Berg, ‘Das Bergseminar in Kongsberg in Norwegen’ (1757–1814)’, in Der Anschnitt 3–4 (2008), 152–165. For the German speaking lands Ch. Bartels (note 35); Warren Dym, Scholars and Miners. Drowsing and the Freiberg Mining Academy’, Technology and Culture 49 (2008), 833–859; Mariann Juha, Die Etablierung und Verbreitung mineralogischen Wissens im historischen Ungarn unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bergakademie Schemnitz (1735–1777); U. Klein (note 10); J. Vogel (note 29); W. Weber (note 5).