Report on a Manuscript Wor\ of M. Andrt. 171 



it is only necessary to treat it as all the natural sciences 

 ought to be; that is to 9ay, to collect with care the parti- 

 cular facts, and to deduce no general conclusions until these 

 facts are collected in sufficient numbers, observing always 

 tl\e rigid rules or' logic. 



It is also evident that this science constitutes a part of na- 

 tural history not less indispenable to the knowledge of the 

 globe than mineralogy itself. It is to the latter, what the 

 history of the climate, soil, and situation proper to each 

 plant is to botany. Its utility to society, if it were once 

 completed,- would be no less evident. By it we direct our» 

 researches for divers minerals, and by the same means an- 

 ticipate the difficulties and expenses attending numerous 

 works, which could not otherwise be known but by expe- 

 rience. Thus, our engineers could not calculate the expense 

 of a subterraneous conduit to substitute for the machine at 

 Marly : geology taught them that at this place they could 

 expect to -find nothing hut chalk. 



The miners, who are more interested than any other art- 

 ists to possess this kind of knowledge, have made it a par- 

 ticular study, according to the class of minerals in which 

 they are engaged. They have determined the characters of 

 mountains with metallic veins, and know perfectly the 

 countries where there is nothing to be found, and those 

 where something may be gained. But from the very na- 

 ture of the motives by which they are influenced, they have 

 almost entirely neglected to examine districts poor in metals. 

 It is thus that in our vicinity each workman knows but the 

 kind of quarries in which he works. He who seeks plaister 

 of Paris neither knows what is above nor what is below /the 

 strata of gvpsum : the quarrier is ignorant that under him is 

 potter's clay, &c. 



He who is the least acquainted with science, will feel that 

 a study which furnishes ciau with regard to all the useful 

 minerals, similar to those of the miners on metallic veins, 

 must be of the greatest importance to society ; and that were 

 it extended to all the known minerals, it would form an 

 equally agreeable and curious branch of natural philosophv. 

 it is probable that we should have principally studied, with 



thii 



