section_path: Classification/Earliest classifications
section_name: Earliest classifications
paragraph_text: Earliest classifications
  
  In 315 BCE, Theophrastus presented his classification of minerals in his treatise On Stones. His classification was influenced by the ideas of his teachers Plato and Aristotle. Theophrastus classified minerals as stones, earths or metals.
  
  Georgius Agricola 's classification of minerals in his book De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546, divided minerals into three types of substance: simple (stones, earths, metals, and congealed juices), compound (intimately mixed) and composite (separable).