226 Analyses of Books. [Sept. 



The principal part of this little work, and the part to which the 

 whole of its value is to be ascribed, consists in a table of the names 

 of the various colours, with a slip of paper after each name painted 

 of the colour indicated by the name. Then comes a list of some 

 animal, vegetable, and mineral bodies, having the same colour. 

 These references may be of some service to beginners ; but they are 

 liable to considerable ambiguity, and may on that account mislead. 

 When Dr. Richardson published his panegyric on fiorin grass, one 

 of his directions was to go to the north side of any church yard wall, 

 and pull up whatever should be found growing there, as it would be 

 no other than fiorin. 1 have heard of an honest Yorkshire farmer 

 who obeyed these directions to a tittle. He went to the north side 

 of his church-yard, and rooted up a fine crop of hemlock (conium 

 maculatum), which was growing against the wall, and transplanted 

 it with much care to his own farm. His surprise was not small, and 

 his faith in the accuracy of Dr. Richardson's directions not a little 

 shaken when he found afterwards that none of his cattle could be 

 prevailed upon to touch this so much vaunted grass. Young 

 mineralogists may fall into similar mistakes if they take the mineral 

 attached to any colour in an absolute sense. Thus limestone, fluor 

 spar, oliven ore, which are placed after particular colours, occur in 

 so many other colours that a young mineralogist cannot be sure of 

 possessing the colour in question merely by being in possession of a 

 specimen of fluor spar, oliven ore, or limestone, unless he compare 

 the colour of his specimen with that of the slip of painted paper in 

 Mr. Syme's book. The vegetable colours are more uniform and 

 constant, though not free from ambiguity. Thus rose-red is said to 

 be the colour of the common garden rose. Every body knows that 

 there are two varieties of the common rose, differing from each 

 other very considerably in colour. Indeed the term rose-red is 

 applied by writers in general with a degree of latitude that renders 

 it very ambiguous. It is applied to the colour of copper, to that of 

 soda-muriate of rhodium (nearly the colour of the unexpanded 

 petals of honey-suckle), and to the colour of the different species 

 of roses. These observations are not meant as attacks upon the 

 plan followed by Werner and Mr. Syme, which may be attended 

 with advantages, and in Mr. Syme's case can occasion little ambi- 

 guity ; but to prevent the young mineralogist from being misled by 

 a reference to a particular mineral which occurs of other colours 

 besides the one specified. 



I do not choose to venture to give an opinion respecting the 

 execution of the shades by a gentleman so much conversant in 

 colours as I know Mr. Syme to be, and so very careful in the 

 execution of all he undertakes, otherwise I should sav that the 

 whole of his greys are mixed with rather too much blue, and are 

 deeper than they usually occur in the mineral kingdom. 



