late Professor of Mineralogy at Frieberg. 183 
supporting its foundation by the surest external distinctive marks, 
he formed that system which, afterwards embracing also the 
geognosis which was peculiarly his own, and forming an intimate 
connexion with all branches of the art of mining, gradually con- 
quered all opposition, and raised its inventor to the rank of the 
creator of a new mineralogy, which might be supported and ex- 
tended, but not rendered useless by the crystallographic theory 
of Haiiy, and the chemical theory uf Vauquelin and others. His 
peculiar talent for observation was animated by the most lively 
fancy, assisted by the most extensive reading in every. branch of 
knowledge connected with his own, and excited by daily inter- 
course with ingenious travellers aud foreigners, who chiefly vi- 
sited Frieberg on Werner’s account. (We may instance only 
the Englishman Hawkins.) The classification in genera and 
species, and for the most part ingenious appellations of minerals 
down to the newest egron, is peculiarly his. ‘‘ Werner,” says 
Leonhard, in his eloquent lecture on the state of mineralogy, 
** was for the doctrine of the recognition of simple fossils, em- 
bracing with uncommon ingenuity all the experience of his age, 
what Winckelmann had been to the arts. What, before him, 
were all the endeavours of Wallerius and Linneus !”” How soon 
was he obliged to give up Cronstedt, who is no where satisfac- 
tory! Only too scrupulous, conscientiousness prevented him 
from publishing the oryktognostical tables, which have been 
finished, and quite ready for the press these four years. The 
attempt of the ingenious Berzelius, of Stockholm, at classifica- 
tion by discovering the laws of combination of the elements, did 
not indeed shake his belief in the method of recognition by means 
of the external characteristics; yet he at last thought that a 
mutual conciliation was possible, and reserved the first analysis 
of the latest writings of Berzelius, for the next winter. Block’s 
work was known to him, He approved of his ingenious scholar’s 
(G, H. Schubert’s) essays (Ausgleichungsversuche). In the 
geognosis, first systematically deduced by him from the rough 
mass, crystalline structure, and the chemical relations of the 
contents, may be called in, together with the ties of external af- 
finity; but the method created by Werner is the only satisfactory 
one, however much may yet be wanting to it, to become a com- 
plete system of the earth. His predecessor Charpentier’s doubts 
respecting Werner’s theory have never been able to shake it. 
His idea of formations, one of the most fruitful of consequences, 
and the most ingenious, in Werner’s geognosis, has been ad- 
mirably developed by his scholar Steffens in Breslau; and his 
formation of the floetz mountains of Thuringen, well supported 
by the excellent Von Freiesleben, in the theory of the copper-slate 
mountain (Kupferschiefergebirge). Werner sustained an obs- 
M4 tinate, 
