NATURAL HISTORY. 27 



examine their actual arrangement upon and below 

 the surface, and associate those appearances with 

 the events of preceding ages in which our future 

 destinies are most nearly connected; we then 

 indeed shall have cause to examine them with 

 an investigating eye, and to endeavour by study 

 and application to render ourselves familiar with 

 the contents of the earth, and with those portions 

 of it which are necessary for our present use, for 

 our ordinary instruction, and what is of still more 

 importance, for our spiritual edification. 



The study of this subject, in its more general 

 acceptation, may be denominated mineralogy; 

 but as it branches out into two considerations, 

 namely, to a description of the particular sub- 

 stances of which the earth is composed, and an 

 inquiry into the nature of its structure and ar- 

 rangement, it has been usual to name the one, 

 mineralogy; and the other, geology. 



Mineralogy, therefore, taken in this limited 

 sense, is that science which enter's into a parti- 

 cular description of all those inanimate and un- 

 organized substances of which the crust of the 

 globe is composed; as derived from their shape, 

 weight, affinity, colour, taste, smell, feel, and the 

 nature of their external surface, or the appear- 

 ances they present upon being fractured: second- 

 ly, upon the particular situation or scite in which 

 they have been found : and, thirdly, upon a 

 knowledge of their constituent parts, as ascer- 

 tained by chemical analysis. 



