ee ee 
Review of Cleavelund’s Mineralogy. 39 
localities, and give the leading features of our natural mineral 
associations. 
Thus it appears* that the work of Professor Cleaveland was 
eminently needed; the science, at large, needed it; and to 
American mineralogists i indisp It appear- 
ed too at a very opportune moment. Had it come a few years 
sooner, ik might not have found many readers. Now it is sus- 
tained by the prevailing curiosity, and diffused state of in- 
formation regarding mineralogy ; and, in turn, no cause could 
operate more effectually to cherish this curiosity, and to dif- 
fuse this information still more widely, than this book. Pro- 
fessor Cleaveland is therefore entitled to our thanks for 
undertaking this task ; and, in this age of book-making, it is no 
small negative praise if an author be acquitted of unnecessarily 
adding to the already onerous mass of books. 
With respect to the pian of this work, Professor Cleaveland 
has, with great good judgment, availed himself of the excel- 
lencies of both the German and French schools. 
Mr. Werner, of Fribourg, in some sense not only the 
founder of the modern German school of mineralogy, but 
almost of the science itself, is entitled to our lasting gratitude 
for his system of external characters, first published in 1774: 
In this admirable treatise he has combined precision and 
copiousness, so that exact ideas are attached to every part of the 
descriptive language, and every character is meant to be de- 
fined 
4 " j 
Was Cal a) 
It is intended that a full description of a mineral upon this 
plan shall entirely exhaust the subject, and that although 
many properties may be found in common among different 
minerals, still every picture shall contain peculiar features, not 
tobe found in any other. It would certainly appear, at first 
View, that this method must be perfect, and leave nothing far- 
ther to be desired. It has, however, been found in practice, 
that the full descriptions of the Wernerian writers are heavy 
and dry ; they are redundant also, from the frequent repetition 
* The smaller works of Phillips and Aikin were not then published ; and 
had they been, they could not have supers@ded Cleaveland ; the same may 
be said of the respectable work of Professor Kidd, of Oxford University. 
