1814.] accelerating the Progress of Mineralogy. 123 



vanity, by placing my name side by side with those who have 

 employed themselves so successfully in promoting the science 

 which 1 cultivate. Nothing would have prevented me from 

 giving a system of mineralogy if I thought 1 could have com- 

 posed a better than the best which we have at present. I should 

 have considered it as a sacred duty to facilitate the study of a 

 science, the difficulty of which often disgusts the beginner, and 

 even stops the career of him who had flattered himself that be 

 would he able to extend its boundaries. Mineralogy has for 

 some years past constituted the most agreeable moments of my 

 life. The more 1 know of it the more 1 desire to know. 



Every day new minerals become known to us. Though the 

 last age was rich in discoveries, nature is far from being ex- 

 hausted. Our successors and followers will find sufficient em- 

 ployment for their talents ; and perhaps will not be very grateful 

 to us for the facilities which we have procured them, any more 

 than we are towards those who have opened to us the career of 

 the science. If this great variety and number of objects becomes 

 agreeable to the amateur by the interest which each new mineral 

 inspires ; at the same time that the number of genera and 

 species augment, it becomes more and more difficult to reduce 

 them under any regular method. I hope this difficulty will soon 

 be felt, and that the systems of an Haiiy and a Werner will at 

 last set bounds to the prevalent fury of making everything anew. 



Those who cultivate mineralogy with success will find enough 

 to satisfy their ambition, without multiplying the number of 

 systems. This beautiful part of natural history, which its diffi- 

 culty alone obliged naturalists so long to neglect, leaves much to 

 be filled up in its details. 1 have often smiled when I heard 

 beginners in ecstasy at the perfection of the science, and some 

 years after recount to me the difficulties which retarded them at 

 every step. It is unfortunate that mineralogy did not find its 

 Linnaeus and its Buffon at the same time with botany and zoo- 

 logy. They have come at last : we have seen them appear. 

 They will leave to our successors philosophical principles accord- 

 ing to which they may direct their researches. 



The traveller, for it is always to him that the philosopher who 

 studio in his cabinet owes his materials, will still find a sufficient 

 number of objects to elucidate. The study of geognosy will 

 t' nli the traveller how useful it would be to unite more closely 

 these two Meters, who ought always to be inseparable. It is his 

 province to make us acquainted with new substances, new posi- 

 tions, new localities. My friend M. Leonbard, who is so much 

 employed in promoting mineralogy, has proved, by his work 

 entitled Topographie Mineralogique, how many difficulties this 



Mibjeet presents. lie has done a real service to all the lovers of 

 this part of the subject, by collecting all the scattered materials 

 which he could find; and his laborious work will facilitate the 

 researches of tlioic who wL>h to fill up the numerous blanks 



