AMERICAN GEOLOGY MACLUREAN ERA, 1785 L819. 227 



duties are taken into consideration. It must be remembered that his 

 was the first attempt made in America at a systematic treatise on min- 

 eralogy.. (Shepard's came sixteen and Dana's twent} r -one years later.) 

 The only available foreign works were those of Jameson, Kirwan, 

 Werner, and Brongniart; moreover, there were in America few, if 

 air\ r , important mineral cabinets, those of B. D. Perkins, Archibald 

 Bruce, and Col. George Gibbs alone being worthy of mention. The 

 work, we are told, was received with great favor, two editions being 

 issued, the second in two volumes bearing date of 1822. A third was 

 called for but never prepared, owing to the failing health of the author/' 



An interesting side light is thrown by one of the reviewers of the 

 first edition upon the condition of the science at that time. Thus he 

 wrote of Hauy's "curious discoveries regarding the six primitive fig- 

 ures or solids which form the base of all crystals," and called it " the 

 most singular and acute discovery of our age," though "there is a 

 difference of opinion among mineralogists as to the practical use of 

 crystallography in the discrimination of minerals." The same 

 reviewer naively remarked: "In this age of bookmaking it is no small 

 negative, praise if an author be acquitted of unnecessarily adding to 

 the onerous mass of books." 6 



Not satisfied with his first edition, which, according to Marcou, was 



published during the author's absence in Europe, Maclure immediately 



set about obtaining the necessary information for a revision, and in 



1817, after eight years of hard work, presented the 



Second Edition of . 



Maciure's amended memoir, which was republished in the trans- 



Observations, 1817. . , *• . 



actions of the Philosophical Society and also in the 

 form of a separate volume of 127 pages, bearing the same date. The 

 second issue differed considerably from the first, the most conspicu- 

 ous features being the delineation of the mountain ranges and the cor- 

 rection of many minor details regarding the distribution of various 

 geological formations. 



On Plate 2 of this issue he gave five sections across the United States 

 from the Atlantic, through the Appalachian regions and the secondary 

 rocks of the Mississippi, which were colored to correspond with the 



" In a letter dated Madrid, August 20, 1822, Maclure writes to ( 'leaveland as follows: 

 "I felicitate you on a second edition of your mineralogy being so soon necessary. 

 The rhineralogical professor here, Dn. Donato Garcia, has the intention of trans- 

 lating your work into Spanish as the best elementary book yet known." As to 

 whether or not this intention was carried out, the present writer has no information. 



b The second American work on mineralogy by one who could with propriety be 

 called a mineralogist and original worker was Prof. C. r. Shepard's Treatise on 

 Mineralogy, Shepard being at that time twenty-eight years of age and an assistant to 

 Professor Silliman at New Haven. The work, which was founded on that of the well- 

 known Austrian mineralogist, Mohs, appeared in the form of a small octavo volume 

 of 256 pages. In 1835 a second part in two volumes of 630 pages appeared. Being 

 purely mineralogical in its nature, but passing note can be made of it here. A second 

 edition was issued in 1844. 



