36(5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 17Q8. 



certain method of ascertaining the laws by which elective attraction arranges and 

 combines molecules of matter. 



It is true, the progress of crystallography has been extremely slow, and different 

 nations have contributed to its present improvement. It is rather remarkable, that 

 the earliest treatise on metallurgy, of authority, was published in Italy, by Vanoccius 

 Biringuccius, just before Agricola published his treatise in 1546 in Germany, and 

 the first treatise on the structure of crystals I know of, is also from Italy, by Nicolas 

 Steno, Prodromus Dissertationis de Solido intra Solidum naturaliter contento. 

 Florentiae, 1669, in 4to : a work of great merit. Louis Bourguet of Neufchatel, 

 in his Lettres sur la Formation des Sels et des Crystaux ; Amst. 1729, 12°, con- 

 nected, by observation and measure, triangular and rhomboidal, and cubic and 

 pyramidal tetraedal molecules, for all different substances. His contemporary, 

 Maurice Antoine Capeller,* attempted to deduce a system from geometrical prin- 

 ciples ; and in this state did Linnaeus find the subject, when he attempted to reduce 

 the science of minerals to external characters, and crystallized bodies to .salts. 



None of the observations of Linnaeus will prove useless to science; but his system 

 alarmed the chemists and mineralogists, who rejected every other criterion than in- 

 ternal character from analysis, and the system of Cronstedt was preferred by general 

 assent. By this means, a spirit of controversy deprived the chemist and lythologist 

 of mutual assistance; and the general opinion was correct, on the supposition that 

 a mixed system of chemical and external characters would be irreconcileable ; but 

 ft has been admitted, even by those who most decidedly opposed Linnaeus's system, 

 that the best system of mineralogy should be founded on external and internal 

 characters combined-}-. Among the few who ventured to profess their obligations, 

 at the same time, to Linnaeus and to Cronstedt, was Baron Born, whose abilities 

 and character, in addition to his distinction as one of the counsellors of mines 

 of his Imperial Majesty, obtained his enrollment among the Fellows of the r. s. 

 He connected the intrinsic and extrinsic characters of minerals, in the Index Fos- 

 silium, which he published in 1772. In Sweden, Bergman's treatise on the forms 

 of crystals, published in the Upsal Transactions, in J 773, was a more authoritative 

 recommendation to the investigation of the principles of crystallization; and it can 

 be of little importance for me to add, that since I have possessed the collection of 

 Baron Born, in 1773, I have had every confirmation of the same opinion. The 

 progress of chemistry and of crystallography, applied to mineralogy, has rendered 

 the examination of strata, and of mines, a source of amusement as well as in- 

 struction; and the arrangement of interesting facts, in the chemistry and mecha- 

 nism of nature, suits my occasional researches in geology, which, from variety of 



* Prodr. Crystallograp. &c. and Litterae ad Scheuzerum, de Cryst. Generatione. Act. Nat Cur. 



toI. 4, Append, p. 9. + Nullum itaque est dubium, quin bujusmodi methodus mixta, quae notis 



cbaracteristicis tam extrinsecis quam intrinsecis simul combinatis, est superstructa, proxime ad naturalem 

 accedens, maximam indicans symmetriam, reliquis sit praeferenda methodis. J. G. Wallerius, de Syst. 

 Min. rite condendo, §. 102. — Orig. 



