AGRICOLA, George, a German physician, famous for his skill in metals. He was born at Glaucha, in Misnia, on the 24th of March 1494. The discoveries which he made in the mountains of Bohemia gave him so great a desire of examining accurately into every thing relating to metals, that though he had engaged in the practice of physic at Joachimstal by advice of his friends, he still prosecuted his study of fossils with great assiduity, and at length removed to Chemnitz, where he entirely devoted himself to this study. He spent in pursuit of it the pension he had from Maurice duke of Saxony, and part of his own estate; so that he reaped more reputation than profit from his la-
hours. He wrote several pieces upon this and other subjects; and died at Chemnitz on the 21st of November 1555, a very firm Papist. In his younger years he seemed not averse to the Protestant doctrine; and he highly disapproved of the scandalous traffic of indulgences, and several other things in the church of Rome. In the latter part of his life, however, he attacked the Protestant religion, which rendered him so odious to the Lutherans, that they suffered his body to remain unburied for five days. It was then removed from Chemnitz to Zeitz, where it was interred in the principal church.