﻿170 Shepard's Treatise on Mineralogy. 



the magnitude, no less than from the heterogeneous character of 

 each, would well nigh discourage the efforts of the most hercu- 

 lean intellect. 



It is on these grounds then, that my treatise makes a distinc- 

 tion between mineralogy, and the full knowledge of minerals; 

 and with this in view, you will see that I have no necessity to 

 employ chemistry in " the determination and arrangement of min- 

 erals," not even "when it is corroborative of natural history," 

 while at the same time, I am far from denying the importance of 

 the knowledge which may be acquired by chemistry. I do in- 

 deed banish the blowpipe and analysis from mineralogy, though 

 I am free to admit that I often resort to the use of both, but 

 never under the idea that I am then mineralogically employed, 

 any more than I would hold you to be zoologically or botanically 

 so, if you were analyzing feathers or rice. 



Having now as I trust fully shown that the treatise by no means 

 disallows the chemical study of minerals, although it does not 

 recognize the results of chemistry as forming an integrant part of 

 mineralogy, it is unnecessary for me to remark any farther on 

 this head, than merely to say, that I do not take you to be in ear- 

 nest, when you assert that a student who should prosecute the 

 study of mineralogy on the natural history system, might with 

 equal profit study a cabinet of glass of divers hues, since that 

 would be to assert that a treatise composed on the plan in ques- 

 tion, is occupied solely with the unimportant property of color. 



Difference of composition in the case of quartz and diamond 

 is not then, as you seem to suppose, an accident with me, as an 

 inquirer into the whole nature of these minerals, but only so far 

 as I am a special mineralogist. I do indeed know quartz from 

 diamond on the grounds you mention, if by knowing them you 

 refer (as is supposed) to the power of distinguishing one from the 

 other: and surely you will not deny these grounds to be both 

 consistent with my system, and sufficient for the purpose. But 

 raj 011 mUmate ' that l WOLlld have the general student of mine- 

 f.ill ^ "! t I le mere names de termined natural-historically as a 



structur W f h ^ ^^^ l r6pIy that yoU misapprehend the 

 th^nnnfi u\ treatise under consideration; because it refers 

 forJ^ \ by means ofit Ieamed the name of a mineral, 



m J finH a geneml WOrk ' devoted t0 Physiography, where he 

 may find an enumeration of all the natural properties belonging 



