Reflections on some Mineralogical Systems. 45 
a logician, nor the extended views of a philosopher. The 
first surveyor, the first joiner, might be as able as M. Haiiy. 
Doubtless, it is necessary to measure certain relations of the 
figures of crystals, and estimate the angles and the sides ; 
but not to banish these results into a note, as a celebrated 
German professor desires, and contents himself with saying, 
that carbonated lime presents the figure of a rhomboid 
whose angles have such or such ameasure. It is to form 
the text, the base of a work, to extract from these results 
superior consequences which influence the whole mineral 
kingdom, and distribute it in a natural and luminous order ; 
it is to set out from the point where empiricism ceases to 
see, and to raise one’s self to conclusions which the philo- 
sopher alone can seize. Oryctometry is the manual part of 
Hatiy’s system, that which the eyes perceive; the remain- 
der is for the understanding. No one has ever said that 
astronomy is astrometry or ‘uranometry, although the hea- 
vens and the stars are measured. The chemist boils his 
acids, roasts his minerals, and blows the bellows of his 
forge; the calculator covers the leaves of his paper with 
rough signs and letters without order; the poet cuts his pen 
and dips it intoink : this is what all eyes may observe. But 
woe to the folly which limits the sallies of genius which 
produced the Iliad, or conceived the doctrine “of infinitesi- 
mals, to these manipulations. 
I Wave beard M. Haiiy reproached for misemploying the 
name phesphated lime, in giving it to that which, in the 
system of Werner, forms two different species, appatite and 
asparagus-stone, ‘The fault is his who made two species of 
the same mineral. 
M. Elaiiy has effected a great reform in the nomenclature 
of minerals. He is justly of opinion, that significant names 
which recall some characteristic property of {be mineral to 
be naiwed, or some circumstance relative to its history, are 
the mos advantageous. Others prefer insignificant names 
for simple substances, and require significant names for 
compounds, in order to give an idea of their nature, T hus, 
in chemistry, they would banish the words oxygen and hy- 
‘drogen ; but sulphuric acid and sulphat of lime, appear to 
‘them excellent. The, species are simple bodies, the unities 
of mineralogy, and consequently should have insignificant 
names*. M., HHaiiy has created nearly the half of the names 
which 
* It is difficult to conceive any possible advantage which could accrue to 
science from arbitrary names; they were never imposed on any thing in 
mature, but from ignorance and necessity. It may, indeed, be questioned, 
wheiher aay human beiag ever desiguated any one thing by an Basti iar 
whic 
