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Introduction to the Study of Mineralogy. 391worthy of being received by minds naturally inclined to inquiries susceptible of precision and vigour, presenting in-, gcnious combinations, and a collection of facts closely connected with each other.To such minds mineralogy presents itself under a new aspect. It is a picture which is embellished by the mere habit of seeing and studying it ; in which Nature exhibits herself, as she does every where else, under an aspect which claims for the Creator the tribute of our homage and admi-ration.Mineralogy embraces a multitude of productions which human industry has not yet been able to mould to the wants or pleasures of life, without a certain study of their characters and of their nature, and without which art could not possibly clear the paths of science. From the earliest times the collection of these familiar productions had been subdivided into stones, salts, bitumens, and metals. ' The methods of the mineralogist arc, as it were, the first outlines of a picture. The working of metallic substances had shown several essential differences which distinguish them. Among the stones there have been composed numerous groupes under the names of marbles and gems, which, notwithstanding the disparity of the bodies which they served to connect with each other,- were attempts at the formation of the genera which subdivide the classes. Certain properties, remarkable from their being elicited under certain circumstances only, have not escaped attention : the attraction exercised by amber when rubbed over light bodies, and the kind of sympathy hetween iron and the magnet, which had been considered as a simple stone, have all been observed. Even the forms of crystals were not wholly unknown to the r ancients: that of rock crystal and of the diamond have been distinctly alluded to by Pliny*. The regular polyhedrons, which at present excite our admiration from their multitude and diversity, were then also remarked as wonderful singularities.It is only since the commencement of this century, how-* * *G Hist. Nat. i. xxxvii, c. 2 Sc •}.Bb 4ever,
Newspaper Details
Philosophical Magazine
London, Middlesex, GB
Sun, Jan 01, 1809
Page 464
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