Managing Mineral Growth in Early Modern Mining

This essay explores how the analogy between vegetable, animal, and mineral growth—common in early modern Europe—informed economic thinking. It proceeds by analyzing a scholarly text emerging from Central European mining, the Berg-Chronica of the Saxon court historiographer Petrus Albinus, within two contexts: natural philosophy (both learned and vernacular) and the management of mines. The provision of precious and useful metals by Nature/God was thought to occur slowly. Taking a long view on mineral provision was fostered by the increasingly bureaucratic management of mines in Central Europe.