A DISCOVERY OF SUBTERRANEAN TREASURE of all manner of mines and minerals, from the gold to the coal; with plain directions and rules for the finding of them in all kingdoms and countries. PLATTES, Gabriel.

TITLE CONTINUED: And also the art of melting, refining, and assaying of them is plainly declared, so that every ordinary man, that is indifferently capacious, may with small charge presently try the value of such oars [sic] as shall be found either by rule or by accident. Whereunto is added a real experiment whereby every ignorant man may presently try whether any piece of gold that shall come to his hands be true or counterfeit, without defacing or altering the form thereof, and more certainly than any goldsmith or refiner could formerly discern. Also a perfect way to try what colour any berry, leaf, flower, stalk, root, fruit, seed, bark, or wood will give: with a perfect way to make colours that they shall not stain nor fade like ordinary colours. Very necessary for every one to know, whether he be traveller by land or sea, or in what country, dominion, or plantation soever he shall inhabit. 1679, small 4to, approximately 195 x 150 mm, 7¾ x 6 inches, pages: [4], 1-24, rebound in full modern calf, gilt title to spine, new brown endpapers, original endpaper to front and rear, padded out at rear with many modern blank pages with speckled edges. Small pale spot to spine, fault in the leather, pale age toning to first 8 pages, small repair to top corner and light staining to outer margin of last page, 2 tiny repairs to edge of first free endpaper, a very good copy. Chapter 2 page 5: " Now in the new Plantations as New England, Virginia, Bermudas etc, where it is like that few or none have ever tryed, that had any skill in these afairs, it is very probable that the Orifice of divers Mines may be discerned with the eye in the clifts of the rocks in many places, as some have been in England at the first, before that men grew a little skillfull, and these be lost and neglected, were a shame to the Planters; for these Mines if they prove rich, would yield more gain in one year, than their Tobacco, and such trifles would yield in their whole lives". Important treatise on **** mineralogy considered the first useful text in English on metallurgy, first published in 1639, also issued in 1679 as part of "The manner of raising, ordering, and improving forest and fruit-trees" by Moses Cook where this copy was taken from. See: . See: Printed Books in the Wellcome Medical Library, Volume 4, page 399; John Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica, Volume 2, page 207: "a Great genius as this writer was, the public allowed him to drop down dead in London streets with hunger, nor had he a shirt upon his back when he died"; DNB, 2 volume edition, page 1676; Sabin, Dictionary of Books Relating to America, Volume 1 No. 63360; ESTC No: R11527. MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE, FURTHER IMAGES ON REQUEST. POSTAGE AT COST.