a town of the Austrian kingdom of Lombardy, in the province of Valceline, 29 miles N.E. of Sondro. It is situated at the foot of a lofty hill of the same name, on the left bank of the Adda, well built, and contains about 2000 inhabitants. Long. 9° 51'. E. Lat. 46° 28' N. In the vicinity are the celebrated Bagni di Bormio, still in repute.

VON BORN, IGNATIUS, BARON VOX, counsellor in the mint and mines at Vienna, an eminent mineralogist and metallurgist, was born of a noble family, at Karlsburg in Transylvania, in 1742. He was educated in a Jesuit college at Vienna, and afterwards entered into that order, which, however, after sixteen months, he quitted. He then studied law at Prague, and afterwards travelled into Germany, Holland, and France. On his return to Prague he engaged in the study of mineralogy.

The mines in the dominions of the house of Austria support a numerous population. Idria produces mercury; Bohemia, tin and cobalt; and the other metals are obtained in sufficient abundance, not only for the home supply, but also for export. Maria Theresa did much for the regulation of the mines; and, with a view to diffusing the knowledge of mineralogy amongst the nobles, she appointed lecturers on that science in the universities. The administration of the revenue arising to government from this source is conducted by a board of managers, overseers, assayers, and other officers, who are instructed in metallurgy and mineralogy, and reside at the mines. The operations of these functionaries are under the control of the mint chamber of the mint and mines at Vienna. An administration thus constituted offers a field of some preferment; and Von Born was received into the department of the mines and mint at Prague in 1770.

About this time he met with an accident which nearly proved fatal. In the course of a mineralogical journey through Transylvania, he came to Felso-Banya, where the gangue is rendered brittle and detached from the rock by exposing it to the flames of wood heaped up in the mine and set on fire. Having gone into the mine soon after the combustion had ceased, whilst the air was hot, and charged with arsenical vapour, he was deprived of sensation for fifteen hours, and long afterwards continued to suffer from a cough and general pain. Some time after this accident he was affected with violent colics, which a large dose of opium removed; this was succeeded by a numbness of the lower extremities, and lameness in the right leg. In the latter part of his life he was deprived of the use of both legs. These calamities, however, did not repress the activity of his mind. One of the chief objects of his exertion was to introduce amalgamation in Hungary, in place of smelting and cupellation, for extracting silver from the ores. At this time he published his book upon the subject, in which he gives the chemical theory of operation, and describes the method he had adopted at Schemnitz. Von Born met with much opposition in his attempts to introduce amalgamation. After he had succeeded in getting silver from the ore publicly at Vienna, his detractors endeavoured to prove that the process was inferior to that already in use; and when at last his process was tried successfully in the great way by orders of Joseph II. at Schemnitz, his opponents shrugged up their shoulders, saying, "It is only the old Spanish process of amalgamation." The emperor ordered that his method should be employed in some of the mines belonging to government, and that he should receive a third part of the savings arising from the improvement during the first ten years, and four per cent. of this third part of the savings for the next twenty years.

Von Born was a satirist, though his attempts in that walk were not particularly successful. The Staats Peruche, a tale published without his knowledge in 1772, and an attack on Father Hell, the Jesuit, and king's astronomer at Vienna, are two of his satirical works. The satirical description of the Monastic Orders, written in form of an academic inaugural dissertation, entitled Monachologia, is generally ascribed to Von Born. In this piece the monks are described in the technical language of natural history; but it is supposed that he was assisted by Professor Herman of Strasburg, the author of the very ingenious work on the mutual affinities of animated beings, entitled Tabula Affinitatum Animalium Commentario illustrata. (Of this clever work a new edition, with additions and illustrations, was published in Edinburgh, 8vo, 1852.)

Von Born was well acquainted with Latin, and the principal modern languages of Europe. He also possessed information in many branches of science not immediately connected with metallurgy and mineralogy. He took an active part in the political changes in Hungary. After the death of Joseph, the dict of the states of Hungary passed a great many acts, rescinding the innovations of that scheming ruler; and it conferred the rights of denizen on several persons who had been favourable to the cause of the Hungarians, and, amongst others, on Von Born. At the time of his death in 1791, he was employed in writing a work entitled Fasti Leopoldini, probably relating to the prudent conduct of Leopold II., the successor of Joseph, towards the Hungarians.

Von Born lived in splendour, and his house at Vienna was resorted to by scientific men of all nations. It is likely that his profits from the process of amalgamation were not considerable, as at his death his affairs were in a state of insolvency. His family consisted of a wife and two daughters, who survived him. (See Townson's Travels in Hungary; and Pezzil, Ostreich Biographien, 1792.)

The following is a list of his principal published writings, and of the works of others which he edited.

*Lytophyllactum Perniciosum*, 1775, 8vo. This is a catalogue of his collection of minerals, which he afterwards sold to Mr. Greville. It now forms a part of the magnificent Greville collection in the British Museum. *Index rerum naturaeorum Musaei Caroli Vindobonensis*. Pars I., *Terebraria*, Viennae, 1778, fol. maj. This splendid volume contains the description and figures of the shells in the museum at Vienna. *On the Amalgamation of Ores containing Gold and Silver*, published in German, 4to, 1786. It has been translated into English by Raspé. Catalogue méthodique et raisonné de la Collection des Plantes de Mademoiselle Eleonore de Roche, 8vo, 1790. Raspé's Description of the Machines used in the Mines of Schemnitz, edited by Von Born. *Verber's Letters from Italy*, written to and addressed to him by Von Born, under the title *Briefe eines Naturforschers gegenwärtig und seiner Zeit durch das Tessin, die Berner Alpen, Ober und Nieder Hauingen, Frankf.* 1774. There is an English version by Raspé, and a French one by Monnet. Some papers in the Abhandlungen der Böhmischen gesellschaft des Wissenschaften. Several papers in the Transactions of a Private Society at Prague, for the improvement of mathematics, natural history, and the civil history of the country. Von Born published an annual periodical work in German, entitled *Philosophical Transactions of the Masons' Lodge of Concord at Vienna*, of which institution he was the founder and patron. He was also a zealous member of the Society of Naturalists; and when the Elector Palatine of Bavaria sent out the mining-societies in his domain, Von Born who was a member of the Academy of Sciences at Munich, on being required to declare whether he would withdraw from the mining-societies, resigned his place in the academy. He wrote some articles in the German work published by Trebra, mine-director at Zellerfeld in the Harz, entitled *A System of Instruction in the Art of Working Mines*, 4to; also *Observations in support of the Metalization of the Alkalies*, in Crell's Annalen, 1790, 1791. Ruprecht and Tondl thought at that time that they had reduced the alkalis and barytes to a metallic state, by the heat of a furnace urged by bellows; but it was afterwards found that the metallic substances thus obtained were not free, proceeding from their crucibles and fluxes. The honour of obtaining this result was reserved for Sir Humphry Davy. *Relation de l'artillerie Russe Transylvanie*, 1759. In the Nova Acta Academiae Naturae Curiosissimae, tom. viii. p. 97. This is an account of the method employed in Transylvania in collecting gold from the sand of the rivers.