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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



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THE MINERAL COLLECTOR 



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The Study of Minerals —Why? 



BY WILLIAM C. BANKS, STAMFORD, CONN. 



That "beauty is its own excuse for be- 

 ing" is a trite saying, but none the less 

 true. The longing for the beautiful is a 

 strong incentive toward the creation 

 tbereof not only in deed but in thought. 

 The editor may be wondering if be asked 

 me to write a panegyric on beauty. "Yes, 

 yon did, when you asked me to write 

 about minerals." For among all the 



forms of nature's moulding few others 

 have the beauty of coloring, artistic 

 grouping and adherence to law exempli- 

 fied in the wonderfully varied yet beauti- 



fully simple crystals of minerals. That 

 minerals satisfy onr appreciation of the 

 beautiful in nature, is one good reason 

 for their study. At the base of all ani- 

 mate nature is the inanimate mineral 

 kingdom. For that reason we should 

 know something of its members. The 

 soil, the rocks beneath our feet are built 

 up of mineral particles. Take, for ex- 

 ample, a bit of marble. See how it glis- 

 tens in the sunlight. Each reflection is 

 from a little cleavage face of the mineral 

 calcite, and each granule, if not con- 

 strained by its fellows, would be a per- 

 fect crystal with its own particular bound- 



A CROSS SECTION OF STALACTITE SIMILAR TO MEXICAN ONYX. 



