Wolf von Engelhardt, im Gesprach mit der Erde: Landschaft, Gesteine, Mlnerallen und Erdgeschichte in seincm Leben und Werk. Weimar: Verlag Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolgcr, 2003. 375 pp. In 1824, Friedrich von Muller recorded Goethe's comment regarding the years spent trying to restore the mine to working order: Ilmenau habe ihm viel Zeit, Muhe und Geld gekostet, dafur habe er aber auch etwas dabei gelernt und sich eine Anschauung der Natur erworben, die er um keinen Preis vertauschen moge(Herwig 3.1:667).The time, the difficulty, the money expended in his labors at Ilmenau, in mineralogy, and in the developing field of geology have been well documented, as have the knowledge and the vision acquired, though less abundantly than his pursuits in chromatics, botany, and morphology. Still, Frederick Amrine's two-volume bibliography, in the History of Science (covering the years 1776 to 1990), lists over 300 titles on (compared to about 5,880 titles overall). The most comprehensive overview of the subject remained until recently Max Semper's 1914 work, Die geologischen Studien Goetbes, and even Max Morris' introduction to volume 40 of the Jubilaumsausgabe still rewards reading. A dissertation by Ernst Peter Hamm,Goethe on Granite (U.Toronto), appeared in 1990, and George Wells' entry in the Goethe-Handbuch (vol. 3, 1997) on Bergbau in und Ansichten uber Gebirgsbildung is an excellent account. For a comprehensive view of the role geology played in Goethe's life, however, probably no one is as' well equipped as Wolf von Engelhardt. In a very long career, Professor von Engelhardt (b. 1910) has authored or co-authored works on the origin of sedimentary rocks, the theory of earth sciences, and sedimentary petrology. Now professor emeritus for mineralogy at the University of Tubingen, he has found time since 1950 to translate and edit Leibniz, to author a number of articles on Goethe, and to edit Goethe's own copy of Fichte's Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslebre (facsimile edition, vol. 71 [2004] in Scbriften der Gesellschaff). He is also the editor of the most recent portions of the Leopoldina edition of Goethe's scientific writings relating to the earth sciences: Aufsatze, Fragmente, Studien zur Naturwissenschaft im Allgemeinen (LA 1.11 [197O]), with Dorothea Kuhn, and Zur Geologie und Mineralogie (LA 2.7 and 8A and B [1987-99]). (For an overview of the contents and a description of the Leopoldina edition, see Dorothea Kuhn, Goethes Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft: Uber Inhalt und Gestaltung der Leopoldina-Ausgabe [1971], reprinted in Dorothea Kuhn, Typus und Metamorphose: Studien, edited by Renate Grumach [Marbach am Neckar, 1988] 70-89.) For the most part, writers on Goethe's geology have been concerned with the minerals and the rocks or with the attempt to situate within a scientific paradigm. Typical titles in Amrine's bibliography include Goethe als Geologe, Goethes Stellung in der Geschichte der Geologic ,Goethe als Hohlenforscher (alternately,Goethe als Bergmann).These often provide essential documentation (Lebensverhaltnisse mit Ober-Berghauptmann von Trebra), particularly of contemporary geological practice. Less attention has been paid to the relationship between Goethe's geology and what Amrine has categorized under Epistemology, especially the issue of Anschauung, a subject well investigated in studies of, say, Die Farbenlebre.As Engelhardt is in a position to know, Goethe's work in geology has been almost completely superseded, while very little has been written on the effect of this particular branch of Goethe's Naturforschung on his Naturverstandnis and its connection to the literary work. im Gesprach mit der Erde seeks to make these connections. It is basically a biography of Goethe, but with a major difference. It is unencumbered almost entirely of familiar names or standard biographical accoutrements, of the personal, and instead illuminates in the context of the figures and the ideas that make up what Rachel Laudan, the historian of science, has called the formative period for the discipline of geology, namely 1780 to 1840. …