THEORY OP THE EARTH. 6? 



by considering that all geologists hitherto have 

 either been mere cabinet naturalists, who had 

 themselves hardly paid any attention to the struc- 

 ture of mountains, or mere mineralogists, who had 

 not studied in sufficient detail the innumerable di- 

 versity of animals, and the almost infinite compli- 

 cation of their various parts and organs. The for- 

 mer of these have only constructed systems ; while 

 the latter have made excellent collections of ob- 

 servations, and have laid the foundations of true 

 geological science, but have been unable to raise 

 arid complete the edifice. 



22. Of the Progress of Mineral Geology. 



The purely mineralogical portion of the great 

 problem of the Theory of the Earth has been in- 

 vestigated with admirable care by Saussure, and 

 has been since explained in an astonishing degree 

 by Werner, and by the numerous enlightened pu- 

 pils of his school. 



The former of these celebrated philosophers, 

 by a laborious investigation of the most inaccessi- 

 ble mountain districts during twenty years of con- 

 tinual research, in which he examined the Alps on 

 all sides, and penetrated through all their defiles, 

 has laid open to our view the entire disorder of the 

 primitive formations, and has clearly traced the 

 boundaries by which they are distinguishable from 

 the secondary formations. The other equally ce* 



