334 Review of Alger's Phillips'' Mineralogy^ 



Treatise by Phillips has been enlarged by three hnndred pages, 

 and more than one hundred additional figures. The introduc- 

 tory chapters have been somewhat extended, a table of formulas 

 for chemical composition added, and full accounts inserted of 

 American localities. 



Mr. Alger's successful labors in the additions he has made, lead 

 us the more to regret that he should have engrafted them upon a 

 work so old as the Treatise of Mr. Phillips. With all his assi- 

 duity and skill, the faults of the original are too apparent, and 

 we feel assured that the editor would have done a greater favor 

 to the science, if he had abandoned his assumed patron, and 

 given us his own ideas in his own way. 



Mr. Phillips's great good sense and accurate knowledge made 

 his Treatise, in 1819 and 1823, the most popular one on mineral- 

 ogy which had ever appeared in the English language, perhaps we 

 might say, with truth, in any language. It is certain that the 

 same qualities which gave character to the first three editions, 

 would, after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century, have led 

 to the adoption of a method more in accordance with the present 

 advanced state of knowledge. 



The classification of the species in Phillips was based on the 

 chemical principles of the day, and bears at the present time 

 strong marks of antiquity. So great have been the changes in 

 chemical science, that we can now hardly imagine how the spe- 

 cies should ever have fallen into such strange associations, unless 

 perchance they had cast lots among themselves for their places. 

 The first two classes are, 1. Earthy miiierals, 2. Alkaline earthy 

 minerals. When an earthy mineral contains a trace of an alkali, 

 like feldspar, it goes into the second division ; otherwise, it falls 

 into the first. As the alkalies are isomorphous with certain bases 

 not alkaline, it occasions singular unions, and as strange dissever- 

 ings of families and species. The following paragraph explains 

 the system of arrangement in Class I, (p. 1.) 



" This class includes those minerals which consist of one earth 

 or more, united with definite proportions of water, and sometimes 

 with common metallic oxides, as of iron and manganese, and 

 rarely with an acid. These latter substances, however, are fre- 

 quently to be regarded as mere mixtures of accidental and varia- 

 ble constituents of the species described. We shall begin with 

 silica in its purest form, as being the oldest and most abundant 



