iilO Professor Necker on Mineralogy/ considered 



Being at the same time engaged in lecturing on mineralogy, 

 I was made still more aware of the relative deficiencies of this 

 science, and ever since, I have applied all the power of reflec- 

 tion I could master, to analyze the causes of such differences, 

 and to find the means of bringing the natural history of the mineral 

 kingdom to a level with that of organized beings. The result of 

 many years'* meditation and labour on the subject, has given rise 

 to a work of which the first part is now nearly ready for the press. 

 In this work I intend laying before the public, what I consider 

 to be new and philosophical views of mineralogy as a spience, 

 and of the proper subjects of its contemplation, in which the 

 apparently discordant characters and properties of minerals, 

 ▼iz. the physical, external and chemical properties, will be made 

 to unite and control each other, in such a manner as I hope 

 will enable me to bring together, in the same classes, families, 

 genera, and species, minerals agreeing as much as the present 

 state of knowledge admits of, not only in chemical composition, 

 but also in external and physical characters. 



My present purpose, in this rapid prodromus, is to present to 

 the student of mineralogy a cursory view of the new ideas which 

 have occurred to me in the course of this investigation. I shall 

 give them almost in the form of aphorisms, referring to the 

 work itself for the development of these ideas, for the demon- 

 stration of the propositions maintained, and for the discussion of, 

 and answers to, the objections which have been, or may be sup- 

 posed hereafter to be, made against any particular part of this 

 new doctrine. 



The subjoined sketch of the higher divisions of the classifica- 

 tion, with the chief characters of the classes, orders, families, 

 and the mention of the genera included in these various divi- 

 sions, will, I trust, be of practical utility to the pupils, and will 

 even, I hope, prove equally so to the master, till the moment 

 when the work itself will disclose to their attention, the com- 

 plete enumeration of characters, from the first subdivisions of 

 the mineral kingdom into Classes, to the last into Species, (by 

 ■which is nH?ant what has been hitherto named Varieties or se- 

 condary forms of crystals), and into varieties either constant or 

 accidental, of the different species. 



