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¥92 Preface to ff The Natural History 
production of them can be obtained at a moderate expense, we 
shall be considerable as a manufacturing and a commercial peo- 
ple. 
It is a particular loss to the increase of knowledge in the na- 
tural history of the mineral kingdom, that this brauch of science 
is neglected in our public schools. Mineralogy is taught in the 
universities abroad. I believe, that what may be called fos- 
silogy, or the arrangement and description of mineral fossils, is 
taught in some of our public schools; but their instructions are 
founded upon small detached samples, the collections of the ca- 
binet, which leave the country gentleman and the young miner 
as much 3 in the dark as before, with respect to the knowledge 
of Nature and of real mineral appearances, which are the true 
sources of useful knowledge in these matters; and this species 
of knowledge is of great importance. 
No country in the world depends so much upon the produc- 
tions of the mineral kingdom, for the means of comfortable ac- 
commodation, wealth, and power, as the island of Britain. 
Coal is now become of such immense consequence to our cities 
and populous counties, to our forges and other manufactures, that 
it was impossible for us to have arrived at such commercial emi- 
nence, and it is as much impossible for us to support our present 
flourishing state of society without it; and we are equally in- 
debted to the other parts of the mineral ‘kingdom for many of the 
staple commodities, which are so widely diffused in the numerous 
channels of our extensive commerce. 
When we consider that many thousands, I may say millions, of 
industrious hands are employed one way or other about the pro- 
duce of the mineral kingdom in this island, we are convinced of 
the importance of the increase of knowledge in mineralogy, and 
of the advantage that would accrue to the nation from the insti- 
tution of a class for teaching this science at our public schools. 
It may be said, that the necessary aids for such an institution 
are wanting in this island;—there has not yet appeared any 
genuine natural history of the mineral kingdom, founded on such 
sound principles of philosophy, as would enable a teacher to lay 
the foundation of, and to complete a continued course of instrue- 
tions in the science of mineralogy. There are not, that 1 know 
of, many valuable books upon the subject in our language, eX-, 
cepting such as treat of chemistry or metallurgy, and such as 
arrange and describe fossil bodies, as they are found in the cabi- 
nets of the curious,—almost all the rest is nothing but, wild 
theory and system, built upon fanciful notions and opinions, the 
fruits of the closet, which have no foundation in the truth of facts, 
as they appear in ‘natural history; and therefore such books can 
be 
