152 Nattiral Ilislonj. 



PERSON, Withering, and Garnet, of Great- 

 Britain , D'Argenville, Soulavie, Faujas, 

 Macquart, Dolomieu, Monnet, Chaptal, Bo- 

 mare, FouRCROY, Hassenfratz, and De la Me- 

 THERiE, of France ; Ludwig, Woltersdorff, 

 Cartheuser, Baron Born, Debern, Voigt, Gel- 

 jLert, Woulfe, Raspe, and many more, of Ger- 

 many; De Saussure, jun. of Geneva; Rinman, 

 and Ferber, of Sweden; Pallas, of Russia; 

 D'Acosta, of Spain; Camera, of Portugal; and 

 GioENNi, Fabroni, and Spallanzani, of Italy. 



The use of the Blow-Pipe, for the purpose of 

 assaying mineral bodies in the dry way, was first 

 introduced by Van Swab, a little before the mid- 

 dle of the century. The importance of this appa- 

 ratus in mineralogy, and the great ease with which 

 it enables the experimenter to conduct his investi- 

 gations, render its introduction by no means an 

 inconsiderable sera in the history of the science. 

 After Van Swab, the Blow-Pipe was much im- 

 proved, and more extensively applied, by Cron- 

 stedt, Bergman, Rinman, Berkeniiout, Black, 

 and several others. The great value of this inven- 

 tion, in chemical and mineralogical inquiries, will 

 appear from considering that the most intense de- 

 gree of heat may be obtained by it, with the ut- 

 most conveniency, in a few minutes, which can 

 scarcely be obtained by means of a crucible in 

 many hours. 



While new systems of arrangement, and of lan- 

 guage in mineralogy, and new means of facilitat- 

 ing experiments in this science have been pro- 

 posed, by different philosophers, during the period 

 under review, immense additions, at the same 

 time, have been made to the old catalogues of 

 mineral substances. LinnyEus described about 

 fae hundred different species. Since that time so 

 many discoveries of new substances have been 



