III. MINERAL KINGDOM. 



THE Third great division of Natural Bodies is the Mineral 

 Kingdom, including all unorganized substances either on the sur- 

 face or in the interior of the globe. This branch of science is term- 

 ed MINERALOGY. In its most extended sense, it not only indicates 

 the characters by which the different inorganic substances may 

 be distinguished from one another and classed, but their affini- 

 ties, their geognostical relations or position, their relative im- 

 portance in the constitution of the globe, the countries which 

 furnish them, and their uses in nature and the arts. Prior to 

 the modern discoveries in chemistry the nature of the objects of 

 the mineral kingdom were but imperfectly understood, and the 

 methodical classification founded on no philosophical basis. 

 Aristotle divided mineral bodies into two divisions, Terrestrial 

 or earthy, and Aqueous or metals. Theophrastus adopted the 

 two classes of Aristotle, but subdivided them into Stones and 

 Earths, of which he formed groups according to their hardness, 

 density, or their affection by fire. Dioscorides and Pliny follow- 

 ed the older arrangement : but Avicenna, a celebrated physi- 

 cian of the twelfth century, divided mineral bodies into four 

 classes, viz. Stones, Metals, Salts, and Sulphurous or inflammable 

 substances. 



A crowd of writers on mineralogy occur from this period 

 to the era of Linnaeus. This celebrated naturalist, apply- 

 ing his peculiar terminology to the science, divided minerals 

 into three Classes, viz. PETK^E, MINERS, and FOSSILIA. He 

 took his characters not only from the external appearance, but 

 from the chemical characters of dissolution by acids and the ac- 

 tion of fire ; and his was the first methodical distribution of 

 minerals into which the consideration of the form of the crys- 

 tals entered. 



The subsequent discoveries in chemistry had a powerful in- 

 fluence on the progress of mineralogy ; while MM. Rome-de-FIsle 



VOL. II. H h 



