Copper is the first metal which had really played a large part in human history. It is considered that Latin cuprus from which chemical name of copper originated was connected with the island of Cyprus, with the meaning ‘copper island’. But actually it is not so. The Greek word κύπρος has uncertain etymology. For copper the Greeks had a word ϗαλκός; the term “Chalcolithic” goes back to this word. Latin language had another word: aes. The combination aes cyprium meant “Cyprian copper”. Then cyprium was replaced by cuprum. All European words connected with it do not go back to a common Indo-European base. The Latin base is closer to them (Muhly 1973, p. 174, 175). <...>

Phase diagrams mean more to the metallurgist than mere graphical records of the physical states of matter. They provide a medium of expression and thought that simplifies and makes intelligible the otherwise bewildering pattern of change that takes place as elemental substances are mixed one with another and are heated or cooled, compressed or expanded. They illumine relationships that assist us in our endeavor to exercise control over the behavior of matter. These are no accidental by-products of a system devised primarily for the recording of physical data. They exist because the basic features of construction of all phase diagrams are dictated by a single natural law, the phase rule of J. Willard Gibbs, which relates the physical state of a mixture with the number of substances of which it is composed and with the environmental conditions imposed upon it. <...>

This book is about metamorphic rocks: the processes involved in their formation and the reasons why they occur at particular places on the continents. It has been written to serve as an elementary text on the subjects of metamorphism and mountain building for non-specialist students of geology. It will be equally useful where geology is either the main or subsidiary subject and could be used by students intending to advance further in geology (the list of advanced texts in the further reading section would be more appropriate to such students). My intention in writing this book has been to try to dispel the notion that metamorphism comprises the 'haunted wing' of geology. Admittedly, there are rather a large number of technical terms in the book, but I hope that after working through it you will not find metamorphism an unduly difficult or obscure aspect of geology. Throughout, I have emphasised the strong links between mountain building, plate tectonics and metamorphic processes