WERNER. 



maimers, the cheerfulnefs and benevolence of his difpofition, 

 his integrity and difinterefted devotion to fcience. Werner 

 was never married. His favourite purfuit next to mineralogy- 

 appears to have been the ftudy of antiquities, one branch 

 of it, the numifmatology of the ancients, had, during the laft 

 eight years of his life, engaged much of his attention ; and 

 he had formed a coUeftion of 6000 Greek and Roman 

 coins, which enabled him to make refearches into the differ- 

 ent mixtures of the metals and the arts of adulteration ; and 

 to make tlie fubjeft more clear, he arranged entire feries of 

 falfe coins. He was alfo attached to the ftudy of medicine, 

 and had made a humorous table of difeafes from infancy to 

 old age ; and among his peculiarities may be mentioned his 

 defire of offering medical advice to his friends, and his habit 

 of judging of his own fituation, which he often thought 

 precarious. He was greatly averfe to the ufe of vinegar 

 and milk, but a determined beef-eater : in other refpefts he 

 lived temperately, drank but little wine, and was anxioufly 

 careful about warm-clothing and rooms, a caution not well 

 fuited to the habits of a geologift. Werner had travelled 

 little from his own country ; his vifit to Paris appears to 

 have been the only diilant excurfion he ever made from 

 Saxony. 



Werner mayjuillybe faid to have contributed more to 

 fextend and improve the praftical knowledge of mineralogy, 

 than any one who had preceded him. His method of ob- 

 ferving and defcribing the external appearances of minerals, 

 has been introduced by his pupils, with fome modifications, 

 into various parts of the world, and has given a new and 

 more definite form to the fcience. It has indeed been ob- 

 jefted to the method of Werner, that confifting principally 

 in the clafTification of minerals according to their external 

 charaSers ; and in tlie defcription and arrangement of thefe 

 charaAers, it may be regarded rather as an empiric art, than 

 a fcience. But in the mineral kingdom thofe definite 

 characters are wanting, which ferve to ditlinguifh the genera 

 and fpecics in the other departments of natural hiftory ; and 

 he who can but relieve this difficulty, and enable the ftudent 

 moft eafily to gain a knowledge of minerals under all thefe 

 varying forms, is entitled to the highefl praife. This palm 

 may be pre-eminently given to Werner ; and whoever has 

 juftly appreciated his labours will never ftop to inquire, 

 whether his method fliould rank among the fciences or the 

 arts. Mr. Kirwan was the firft who introduced a know- 

 ledge of the Wernerian mineralogy into this country ; but 

 for a more complete knowledge of it, we are indebted to 

 profeffor Jamefon, in his Syftem of Mineralogy, firft pub- 

 liflied in 1804, and in the fecond edition of 1817. 



As a geologift, we cannot allow to Werner the fame de- 

 gree of immixed praife. His fy ftem of geognofie was formed 

 on obfervations made on a very limited portion of the 

 earth's furface in his own vicinity ; and he has laid down a 

 fucceflion of rock-formations as univerfally fpread over the 

 globe, becaufe thefe rocks occurred in this order in a par- 

 ticular part of Saxony, oubfequent obfervations have, 

 however, demonftrated, that even at a little diftance from 

 Freyburg, many of the fuppofed univerfal rock-formations 

 are not to be found, and that other rocks fupply their 

 place. The reader may confult a defcription of the Saxon 

 Erzgebirge by M. Bonnard, in the Journal des Mines for 

 1815, to convince himfelf of this. It is, we confider, for- 

 tunate for Mr. Werner's fame as a geologift, that no work 

 of his on the fubjeft has appeared, except the " New 

 Theory of Veins." This for fome time enjoyed a certain de- 

 gree of celebrity from the name of the author ; but the new 

 information which it contains is very fcanty, and the theory 

 which it fupports fo inadequate to explain the phenomena, 



9 



and fo much at variance with fafts, that it was in a great 

 part abandoned by many of the warm admirers of Werner, 

 even fome years before his death. It will now fcarcely 

 meet with a fupporter among thofe who have any praftical 

 knowledge of mineral-veins. Mr. Werner contended for 

 the aqueous formation of almoft every kind of rock even 

 pumice-ftone and obfidian he maintained were the produfts 

 of water ; and when he was repeatedly invited to vifit the vol- 

 canic diftrifts of Italy, and the ancient volcanoes of France 

 he declined an examination which might have greatly en- 

 dangered his own theory. The followers of Werner as a 

 geologift reft his fame not on his local obfervations, but on 

 his attempt to generahze his obfervations, in order to form 

 a theory which fhould explain the ftrufture of the earth and 

 the mode of its formation. Indeed fuch was their admira- 

 tion, that they would not admit his fyftem to be a theory, 

 but confidered it as an expofition of demonftrated fafts. 

 " This great geognoft," fays Mr. Jamefon, " after many 

 years of the moft arduous inveftigations, condufted with an 

 accuracy and acutenefs of which we have few examples, 

 difcovered the manner in which the cruft of the earth is 

 conltrufted. Having made this great difcovery he, after 

 deep refieftion, and in conformity with the ftrift rules of 

 induction, drew moft interefting conclufions as to the 

 manner in which the folid mafs of the earth may have been 

 formed. It is a fpleiidid fpecimen of inveftigation, the 

 moft perfeft in its kind ever prefented to the world. 

 (Jamefon's Mineralogy, firft edition, vol. i. p. 22.) We 

 believe there are few perfons who will not now admit that 

 the admiration and praife here beftowed were difpropor- 

 tioned to the objeft, whether we regard the merit of Mr. 

 Werner's obfervations for accuracy as a geologift, or the 

 conformity of his theory with exifting appearances. 



The method of inveftigation purfued by Werner in at- 

 tempting to trace the rocks in a diftrift in fuccefTion, from 

 the lowell or fundamental rock to the uppermoft ilratum, 

 and marking the limits of each rock where it terminates on 

 the furface, was confidered by his followers as entirely his 

 own, and was called by them the method of the JVernerian 

 geognofie. But this method had been known and praftifed 

 in England long before we were acquainted with the name 

 of Werner ; indeed it is the only one which preceding geo- 

 logifts could praftically adopt in furveying a country. On 

 a fmaller fcale, it had been praftifed by all intelligent coal- 

 viewers ; and it had been exhibited on a larger fcale by Mr. 

 Whitehurft, in the defcriptions and plates which he has 

 given in his " Theory of the Earth." SaufTure followed 

 no fyftem ; yet wherever the order of fucceflion was appa- 

 rent, he has not failed to inform us. But the country 

 which he inveftigated, (Switzerland,) prefents enormous 

 maffes, frequently in much apparent confufion, the order of 

 fucceflion being hid by debris or by glaciers. In other in- 

 ftances, whole mountains compofed of different rocks ap- 

 pear to have been formed cotemporaneoufly. SaufTure, who 

 had no theory of any regular order of fucceffion to fup- 

 port, has fimply defcribed fafts as they exift. Our own 

 countryman, William Smith, had been long employed in 

 tracing the limits and order of fucceffion of the ftrata in 

 the midland and eaftern counties of England, before the 

 Wernerian geognofie was known either in England or 

 Scotland. 



The originality of the Wernerian geognofie confifted 

 more in the invention of a new language adapted to fupport 

 a theory, than in the difcovery of a new and praftical me- 

 thod of inveftigation. The language is highly objeftion- 

 able in many refpefts, as the terms are founded on the prema- 

 ture affumption of the relative ages and modes of formation 



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