238 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Mr. G. W. Hill gave an account of the present state of the 

 Lunar Theory. 



Mr. T. S. Hunt presented some theoretical considerations 

 in explanation of the chemical activity of substances in the 

 " Nascent State." 



Five hundred and seventy-sixth Meeting. 



January 8, 1867. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The Corresponding Secretary read letters relating to ex- 

 changes ; also an invitation to the members of this Academy 

 from the Imperial Mineralogical Society of St. Petersburg, 

 to attend the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. 



The following communication was presented : — 



On the Object and Method of Mineralogy. By T. Sterry 



Hunt, F. R. S. 



Mineralogy, as popularly understood, holds an anomalous position 

 among the natural sciences, and is by many regarded as having no 

 claims to the rank of a distinct science, but as constituting a branch of 

 chemistry. This secondary place is disputed by some mineralogists, 

 who have endeavored to base a natural-history classification upon such 

 characters as the crystalline form, hardness, and specific gravity of min- 

 erals. In systems of this kind, however, like those of Mohs and his 

 followers, only such species as occur ready formed in nature are com- 

 prehended, and the great number of artificial species, often closely re- 

 lated to native minerals, are excluded. It may moreover be said, in 

 objection to these naturalists, that in its wider sense the chemical his- 

 tory of bodies takes into consideration all those characters upon which 

 the so-called natural systems of mineral classification are based. In 

 order to understand clearly the question before us, we must first con- 

 sider what are the real objects, and what the provinces, respectively, of 

 mineralogy and of chemistry. 



Of the three great divisions or kingdoms of nature, the classification 

 of the vegetable gives rise to systematic botany, that of the animal to 

 zoology, and that of the mineral to mineralogy, which has for its sub- 

 ject the natural history of all the forms of unorganized matter. The 



