In nineteenth-century Italy, knowledge production about science and technology were central to the construction of the territory that would form the foundation for the material and cultural prosperity of the nation. In particular, earth science, also thanks to the developments of stratigraphy, contributed to the mapping of soil and subsoil and to the organisation and integration of knowledge aimed at making the Italian natural environment a national space, that is, the territorialisation of Italian nature. As anticipated, this process had both cognitive purposes aimed at the advancement of Italian science, and practical purposes related to the exploitation of the territory’s resources. In order to exploit it, it was first of all necessary to know it. In a context of discipline formation and professionalisation, it is difficult to make a clear separation between the technical and scientific spheres. This chapter will mainly focus on mining-related research and practices, closely intertwined with the territorialisation process but aimed, before the creation of a body of knowledge, at making Italian nature an economically competitive space.