Ignaz Edler von Born und die Societät der Bergbaukunde 1786

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Mining and extraction technology

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At the University of Prague he studied law, but thereafter turned to mineralogy, physics and different aspects of mining. In 1769–70 he worked with the mining administration in Schemnitz (now Banská Stiavnica, Slovakia) and Prague and later continued travelling to many parts of Europe, with special interests in the mining districts. In 1776, he was charged to enlarge and systematically to reshape the natural-history collection in Vienna. Three years later he was appointed Wirklicher Hofrat at the mining and monetary administration of the Austrian court.

Born, who had been at a Jesuit college in his youth, was an active freemason in Vienna and exercised remarkable social communication. The intensity of his academic exchange was outstanding, and he was a member of more than a dozen learned societies throughout Europe. When with the construction of a new metallurgic plant at Joachimsthal (now Jáchymov, Czech Republic) the methods of extracting silver and gold from ores by the means of quicksilver demanded acute consideration, it was this form of scientific intercourse that induced him in 1786 to invite many of his colleagues from several countries to meet in Schemnitz in order to discuss his ideas. Since the beginnings of the 1780s Born had developed the amalgamation process as had first been applied in Mexico in 1557, by mixing the roasted and chlorinated ores with water, ingredients of iron and quicksilver in drums and having the quicksilver refined from the amalgam in the next step. The meeting led to the founding of the Societät der Bergbaukunde, the first internationally structured society of scientists in the world. He died as the result of severe injuries suffered in an accident while he was studying fire-setting in a Slovakian mine in 1770.

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