23 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



These are the only fossils of this genus, with whose cha- 

 racters we are as yet sufficiently acquainted to say, with 

 certainty, that they form distinct species. Between the three 

 latter and iron sand, the intermediate transitions, as between 

 all adjacent fossils, ar/?, probably, innumerable. Were we 

 to take analysis alone for ouj guide, it would multiply the 

 species without necessity, and lose sight of the intentions 

 of nature, who does not confine herself to 5 or 10 per cent, 

 of an ingredient,: beside, ^a Klaproth has confessed, that it 

 is not so much t'he identity and proportion of the ingre- 

 dients, as the particular state of their combination, (which 

 to us is perfectly xmknown,) that determines the natui'e of the 

 resulting fossil. In addition to those fully determined species, 

 we have been favoured, by Klaproth, with the analysis of a 

 menacaniferous ore, fi'om Aschaffenberg ; by Vauquelin, Avith 

 that of another, from Bavaria; and, by Abildgaard, with that 

 of a third, from Barboe, in Norway; all which differ from 

 the foregoing species, and from one another, in composi- 

 tion, or in the proportion of ingredients; so that it is impos- 

 sible to determine, with any probability, to Avhat species 

 they belong, from the want of an adequate external descrip- 

 tion, and account of their geognostic occurrence. 



The masterly hand of Klaproth has further detected this 

 metal, in the iron sand, which accompanies the hyacinths, 

 &c. in Ceylon, and in some of the iron ores of Norway ; 



and 



