348 Review of Alger's Phillips' Mineralogy, , 



Chemical characters alone are perhaps as insufficient as charac- 

 ters purely physical, in the determination of minerals. Were all 

 minerals distinctly crystallized, the naturalist would have a strong 

 argument in support of his views, rendered doubly forcible by 

 the principles of isormorphism and dimorphism. 



To the chemist, rutile and anatase, Sillimanite and kyanite, 

 white iron and iron pyrites, carbonate of lime and arragonite, gar- 

 net and idocrase, are identical substances. But the laws of di- 

 morphism (the development of which the mineralogist owes as 

 much to chemistry as to physics) establish them as distinct. We 

 have already expressed the opinion, that a new method was in 

 store for mineralogy, which should combine all that was essential 

 and truly important, both in chemistry and natural history, with- 

 out a blind adherence to either, and the results of every year 

 seem to add new strength to the opinion. 



We do not wish to be considered as criticising the arrangement 

 of species in the table contained in Prof. Shepard's little volume, 

 which is in the main unexceptionable. Our remarks are aimed 

 rather at the exclusive adherence to a so called natural history 

 method on the one hand, and the neglect of chemical evidence 

 on the other. The volume before us bears evidence of the errors 

 to which the former must of course lead, and also to the impos- 

 sibility of a consistent adoption of the latter principle. 



The introductory chapters of the book will be found clear and 

 useful to the general student, but the tables for determination are 

 too brief to enable the learner, who is wholly unacquainted with 

 the science, to determine a species with facility, and by no means 

 supply the want of full descriptions and figures, and yet we infer 

 that the small volume is intended to go alone as a complete trea- 

 tise. Take an example of the mode of arrangement of characters. 



*13. Apatite, 5-0 3% Hex. prs., mas. gran. L. vit. C. various. 



(Splendid xls. at Hammond, St. Lawrence Co., N.Y.) 



This is all the information which the author thinks necessary to 

 enable the learner to determine this species. 



In carrying out his views of having a trivial name for every 

 species, Prof. Shepard has found it necessary to drop several ol 

 and well established names, chiefly because they convey a notion 

 of the chemical constitution of the mineral. We observe the 



of 



U1C IlllUC^lttl. " ^ — /» 



Oxacalcite for oxalate of lime, o 



