362 —COi. Review of Dana’s Mineralogy. 
monia, all the phosphoric acid which was combined with the 
alumina remains in the fluid. 
This mineral occurs in large quantity, in South Peru, near the 
port of Iquique. It invests the well known flesh-colored trachyte, 
and is mixed with masses of sulphates of ammonia, soda and 
magnesia, and salts of iron. ‘The careful examinations of these 
saline deposits of Peru, by Mr. John H. Blake, led to the dis- 
covery of this mineral, and | have named it in compliment to 
John Pickering, Esq., the learned and distinguished President of 
the American Academy of Sciences. 
_ Roxbury Laboratory, March 8, 1844. 
Art. XX.—System of Mineralogy, including the most Recent 
Discoveries, Foreign and American ; 640 pp. large 8vo, with 
320 Wood Cuts, and four Copper Plates, containing 150 ad- 
ditional Figures. By James D. Dana, A. M. London and 
New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1844. 
Ir is seven years since we had the pleasure of announcing the 
first edition of this valuable work. (Vol. xxxm, p. 387.) The 
sale of a large edition of a book so purely scientific in this space 
of time gives good evidence alike of the growing interest in the 
subject in America, and of the high place which Mr. Dana’s sy 
tem holds in the estimation of mineralogists. During the perl 
which has passed since the appearance of the first edition, the 
science of mineralogy has made rapid advances both in Europe 
and in this country. Abroad, many eminent chemists have been 
working up the obscure parts of the subject, and throwing neW 
light on those better known. “The progress in analysis is espe 
cially apparent in the growing interest excited for the natural 
method of classification, and the opening prospect that, before 
long, the chemical and natural systems will be identical. There 
formerly seemed to be no bond of union between the species, 
hornblende, augite, tabular spar, acmite, and manganese spat, and 
in chemical methods we have found one with the ores of mat 
ganese, another with those of iron, another with salts of lime, 
and so on; but even Chemistry now suggests the natural syste™ 
of arrangement, and demands their union in a single family, % 
given in some of the latest chemical treatises. Numerous othet 
