PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES. 37 



ganic bodies with inorganic material, such as calcium chlorid, sodium 

 phosphate, and calcium carbonate — substances that are found every- 

 where. Beside, the structure of living beings, whether organic or 

 inorganic, would be useless without the water and salts to determine 

 the tonus and the nutritive osmotic currents. 



"Although substances from the organic kingdom are sujSicient in 

 themselves for the support of life, it is because they always contain a 

 certain proportion of mineral matter. 



"We cannot deny the importance of the HOO organic substances ex- 

 tracted from plants, but neither can we deny that living beings pro- 

 ceed out of inorganic forces and substances. If my views are correct, 

 living beings must be regarded as mineral colloids, and zoology and 

 botany as chapters of mineralogy." 



M. Herrera should have gone farther; instead of saying, "it is be- 

 cause they always contain a certain proportion of mineral matter," he 

 should have said, "it is because tliey are wholly made up of mineral 

 matter." 



I know of but two colleges in this country that give distinctive 

 prominence to mineralogy in their work. Those are Yale College and 

 Columbia College. Yale College owes a large part of its fame to hav- 

 ing had a Dana conspicuously connected with it. James A. Dana 

 has left an imperishable monument to commemorate his memory in 

 his "System of Mineralogy," which is now the recognized authority on 

 mineralogy in the English language ; and I am told by those who are 

 familiar with other languages that there is no work in existence that 

 covers the field so completely. A worthy son is following in his 

 father's footsteps and carrying on the work. 



The rapid development of our mineral resources and the proud 

 position our country has attained in mineral production, giving evi- 

 dence of possessing mineral resources far surpassing any other equal 

 area on the globe, should arouse us to the importance of giving more 

 attention to the study of mineralogy. 



As mineralogy practically covers the useful field of geology, and it 

 is more essentially the science of to-day and of the future, it should 

 be made the leading branch of natural-science instruction in our 

 educational institutions. 



Mineralogy is the natural handmaid of geology. In studying the 

 composition of the matter that makes up the crust of the earth, to 

 learn its useful properties for man's comfort and progress, the student 

 of mineralogy necessarily has to learn the practical part of geology ; 

 the natural relative position of the primary rocks ; the history, posi- 

 tion, composition and useful properties of the sedimentary rocks ; the 

 phenomena and result of igneous action, and its metamorphic re- 

 sults in affecting the deposition of the useful minerals. This wide 



