Ill 



Werners Geognosy 1 1 1 



" common angulo-granular," or as " not particularly diffi- 

 cultly frangible " ? l 



"Werner arranged trie external characters of minerals in 

 so methodical a way, that they could readily be applied in 

 the practical determination of species. Yet strangely 

 enough he neglected the most important of them all that 

 of crystalline form. From the individual minerals, he 

 proceeded to the consideration of their distribution, and 

 the character and origin of the different rocks in which 

 they occur. To this branch of inquiry he gave the name 

 of geognosy, or knowledge of the earth, and he defined it 

 as the science which reveals to us in methodical order the 

 terrestrial globe as a whole, and more particularly the 

 layers of mineral matter whereof it consists, informing us 

 of the position and relations of these layers to each other, 

 and enabling us to form some idea of their origin. The 

 term geology had not yet come into use, nor would either 

 Werner or any of his followers have adopted it as a 

 synonym for the " geognosy " of the Freiberg school. 

 They prided themselves on their close adherence to fact 

 as opposed to theory. One of them, with pointed refer- 

 ence to the writings of Hutton and Playfair, which had 

 appeared shortly before, wrote : " We should form a very 

 false conception of the Wernerian geognosy were we to 

 believe it to have any resemblance to those monstrosities 

 known under the name of Theories of the Earth. . . . 

 Armed with all the facts and inferences contained in these 

 visionary fabrics, what account would we be able to give 

 of the mineralogy of a country, if required of us, or of the 



1 These terms are all taken from the Wernerian system as expounded 

 in English by Werner's pupil, Jameson. 



