[ viii 3 



found. But as every country had a different 

 name for thefe bodies, they often gained more 

 names than there were real fpecies, and even 

 fometimes the very reverfe happened; this oc- 

 cafion^d a confufion, which in the beginning 

 was excufable, but in length of time could not 

 fail of being an obftacle to the progrefs of the 

 fcien. e, and its application in common life. 



To remove and alter thefe inconveniences, 

 they have in later and more enlightened times 

 endeavoured to fix proper names to the fubjeds 

 of the mineral kingdom, according to their ex- 

 ternal marks, as in regard to Figure, Colour, 

 and Hardnefs ; but thefe characters afterwards 

 having been found not fufficient, it was necef- 

 fary to difcover others more folid by the refult 

 of chemical experiments, which added to the 

 former ones would make a complete fyftem, 

 Hiarne and Bromell were, as far as I know, 

 the firft who founded any mineral fyftem upon 

 chemical principles. However, they were only 

 the projectors of this manner of proceeding - y 

 and to them we owe the three known divifions 

 of the rnoft firnple mineral bodies ; viz. the Cat- 

 caret) Vitrejcentes^ et Apyri. This fyftem was 

 afterwards adopted by Dr. Linnaeus, who, as a 

 very fkilful perfon in the other two kingdoms 

 of nature, oup-ht not to have omitted the third 

 when he pubhfhed his Syftema Nature. Browal,. 

 bifhop of Abo, a prelate of great learning, had 

 an opportunity of altering and improving Lin- 

 neus's method in a manufcript, which Dr- 

 Wallerius has fince made public in his Minera- 

 logy,. 



