No. 6.] BRUSH — AMERICAN MINERALOGY. 323 



laudable efforts of a few gentlemen," be says, "to excite some 

 taste for mineralogy, so little bad been effected in forming col- 

 lections, in kindling curiosity and diffusing information, tbat only 

 fifteen years since (1803), it was a matter of extreme difficulty 

 to obtain among ourselves even the names of the most common 

 stones and minerals ; and one might inquire earnestly and long 

 before he could find any one to identify even quartz, feldspar or 

 hornblende among the simple minerals, or granite, porphyry or trap 

 among the rocks. We speak from experience, and well remember 

 with what impatient, but almost despairino- curiosity we eyed the 

 bleak, naked ridges which impended over the valleys and plains 

 that were the scenes of our youthful excursions. In vain did we 

 doubt that the glittering spangles of mica, and the still more 

 alluring brilliancy of pyrites, gave assurance of the existence of the 

 precious metals in those substances, or that the cutting of glass 

 by the garnet and by quartz proved that these minerals were the 

 diamond ; but if they were not precious metals, and if they were 

 not diamonds, we in vain inquired of our companions, and even 

 of our teachers, what they were." Such, then, was the state of 

 knowledge in mineralogy here at the commencement of the cen- 

 tury. A few American minerals, collected by travellers from 

 time to time, had before this been taken to Europe for identifi- 

 cation, but among these were discovered only two minerals new 

 to science. The Moravian missionaries found at St. Paul, in 

 Labrador, the beautiful species of feldspar called by Werner 

 Lcihradorstein, which in more modern times we know under the 

 name of Labradorite. Klaporth, the most eminent analytical 

 chemist of his time, discovered that the so-called fibrous barytes 

 from Pennsylvania was the sulphate of the then newly discovered 

 earth strontia. He thus, for the first time, identified the mineral 

 species celestite which was subsequently found in various locali- 

 ties in Europe. Although little had been accomplished in Amer- 

 ica previous to 1800, the first quarter of the new century was 

 destined to show great development here in the study of miner- 

 alogy. During the early years of this quarter several collections 

 of European minerals were brought to this country by American 

 gentlemen, who had availed themselves during a residence in 

 Europe of the best opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the 

 science from the great masters of the subject in Germany and 

 France. About this time also several colleges in the country had 

 instituted chairs of chemistry and mineralogy, and a commence- 



