THE PRESENT STATUS OF MINERALOGY. 803 



others are openly opposed. The latter, however, mostly belong to a 

 school of thought which, chemically speaking, is obsolescent ; and by 

 refusing to accept the later notation they bar the doors of progress 

 against themselves. They discover details, but they develop no prin- 

 ciples. A reasonable distrust of novelty, however, is always legitimate; 

 and the question may fairly be raised whether the methods of reason- 

 inor which are valid in organic chemistry can safely be applied to min- 

 eralogic research. The organic chemist deals with compounds for 

 which the starting-points are simple and well known ; in many cases 

 he can determine molecular weights with ease ; and his material is so 

 plastic that it can be altered, built up, or transferred in readily trace- 

 able ways. Every step in his processes can be followed, and his re- 

 sults may be checked from many sides. Minerals, on the other hand, 

 are hard and stubborn ; they form slowly and change with difficulty ; 

 they can not be handled as systematically as their organic analogues, 

 and the evidence concerning their chemical structure is therefore less 

 complete and convincing. Still, the case is not quite hopeless, and 

 much positive work may be done. 



Just at this point the main lines of mineralogic investigation seem 

 to converge toward the central stem of growth. Leaving out of ac- 

 count mere questions of descriptive detail, the raw material of scien- 

 tific thought, we may consider three great divisions of study which 

 touch the problem of chemical structure. First of all, we have the 

 branch of associative mineralogy. Minerals do not occur together at 

 random, in all conceivable groupings, but only in accordance with defi- 

 nite laws which are now subjects for investigation. We can not clearly 

 formulate these laws as yet, but we are learning much about them 

 empirically ; so that in many cases, upon finding one species, we in- 

 stinctively look for certain others, which we are quite sure must exist 

 with or near it. Some minerals are found in granite veins, some in 

 volcanic rocks, and some only in ore-bodies, and each one may be evi- 

 dence for its neighbors. The chief work of the lithologist is in a 

 limited portion of this field; for he considers the minerals which are 

 aggregated into rock-masses, which latter represent definite and fre- 

 quently recurring associations exhibited upon a large scale. The very 

 classification of the rocks is based upon their mineralogical character- 

 istics. Lithology, however, takes into account only a small minority 

 of known species. 



Now each well-established group of mineral associates indicates 

 something relative to their origin. It represents the collective con- 

 ditions under which they came into existence, and points distinctly 

 toward the chemical reactions which formed them. If we study any 

 one locality closely, we shall discover some details of curious signifi- 

 cance. Some minerals occur enveloped by, inclosed in, or implanted 

 upon others ; some line cavities, and some represent incompleted pro- 

 cesses. We see clearly that one was formed before or after another ; 



