58 Review of Cleaveland^s Mintralogy. 



with its sister science, Geology, is fast arresting the pubUc 

 attention. In such a state of things, books relating to mine- 

 ralogy would of course be eagerly sought for. 



No work, anterior to Kirwan, could be consulted by the 

 student with much advantage, on account of the wonderful 

 progress, which, within forty or fifty years, has been made in 

 mineralogy. Even Kirwan, who performed a most important 

 service to the science, was become, in some considerable de- 

 gree, imperfect and obsolete ; the German treatises, the fruit- 

 ful fountains from which the science had flowed over Europe, 

 were not translated ; neither were those of the French ; and 

 this was the more to be regretted, because they had mellowed 

 down the harshness and enriched the sterility of the German 

 method of description, besides adding many interesting disco- 

 veries of their own. It is true we possessed the truly valu- 

 able treatise of Professor Jameson, the most complete in our 

 language. But the expense of the work made it unattainable 

 by most of our students, and the undeviating strictness with 

 which the highly respectable author has adhered to the Ger- 

 man mode of description, gave it an aspect somewhat repul- 

 sive to the minds of novices, who consulted no other book. 

 We are, however, well aware of the value of this work, espe- 

 cially in the improved edition. It must, without doubt, be in 

 the hands of every one who would be master of the science ; 

 but it is much better adapted to the purposes of proficients 

 than of beginners. 



The mineralogical articles dispersed through Aikin's Dic- 

 tionary are exceedingly valuable ; but, from the high price of 

 the work, they are inaccessible to most persons. 



The most recent of the French systems, that by Brongniart, 

 seemed to combine nearly all the requisites that could be de- 

 sired in an elementary treatise ; and a translation of it would 

 probably, ere this, have been given to the American public, 

 had we not been led to expect the work of Professor Cleave- 

 land, which, it was anticipated, would at least possess one 

 important advantage over the work of Brongniart, and every 

 other ; it would exhibit, more or less extensively, American 



