BOOKS 
Very few books of a popular nature have been published on the 
subject of Mineralogy. In addition to the “Popular Guide to Minerals”’ 
by L. P. Gratacap, mentioned in the note at the beginning of this 
Leaflet, the following books may be read with profit by a beginner in 
the study of mineralogy. 
“Minerals and How to Study Them,’’ by Edward Salisbury Dana, 
John Wiley and Sons, 1895. 
“The World’s Minerals,’’ by Leonard J. Spencer. Frederick A. 
Stokes Company, 1911. 
Although there is much to be gained by the student of mineralogy 
from books, and although they furnish a very necessary key to the 
meaning of what is to be seen in the mineral world, the best and most 
satisfactory knowledge of the subject is to be gained from studying 
collections of minerals. ‘The knowledge which enables one to recog- 
nize a mineral at sight is similar to the knowledge which enables one 
to recognize a friend. It is a composite realization of a number of 
characteristics, no one of which is sufficiently definite and unique to 
be relied on without the aid of some of the others. We may read a 
statement of the form, the color, the luster and the various other at- 
tributes of a certain mineral, but until we have these combined 
properties set before our eyes in a specimen of that mineral we can 
form only an imperfect idea of it. 

