244 Ford — Growth of Mineralogy, 1818 to 1918. 



that another journal of a similar type should be insti- 

 tuted. Such a suggestion was made by Col. Gibbs to 

 Professor Silliman in 1817 and this led directly to the 

 founding of the American Journal of Science in 1818 

 under the latter 's editorship. Although the field of the 

 Journal at the very beginning was made broad and inclu- 

 sive it has always published many articles on mineralog- 

 ical subjects. Three of its editors-in-chief have been 

 eminent mineralogists, and without question it has been 

 the most important single force in the development of 

 this science in the country. More than 800 well-estab- 

 lished mineral species have been described since the year 

 1800, of which approximately 150 have been from Amer- 

 ican sources. More than two-thirds of the articles 

 describing these new American minerals have first 

 appeared in the pages of this Journal. While the 

 description of new species is not always the most import- 

 ant part of mineralogical investigation, still these fig- 

 ures serve to show the large part that the Journal has 

 played in the growth of American mineralogy. 



It is convenient to review the progress in Mineralogy 

 according to the divisions formed by the different series, 

 consisting of fifty volumes each, in which the Journal has 

 been published. These divisions curiously enough will 

 be found to correspond closely to four quite definite 

 phases through which mineralogical investigation in 

 America has passed. The first series covered the years 

 from 1817 to 1845. In looking through these volumes 

 one finds a large number of mineralogical articles, the 

 work of many contributors. The great majority of these 

 papers are purely descriptive in character, frequently 

 giving only general accounts of the mineral occurrences 

 of particular regions. However, a number of articles 

 dealing with more detailed physical and chemical descrip- 

 tions of rare or new species also belong in this period. 

 Among the mineralogists engaged at this time in the 

 description of individual species, none was more inde- 

 fatigable than Charles II. Shepard. He was graduated 

 from Amherst College in 1824, at the age of twenty. In 

 1827 he became assistant to Professor Silliman in New 

 Haven, continuing in this position for four years. Later 

 he was a lecturer in natural history at Yale, and was at 

 various times connected with Amherst College and the 

 South Carolina Medical College at Charleston. His 



