1813.] 



Gil Formations, 



203 



limestones : the other he names the third floetz gypsUm, to show 

 that he considers it as different from the fibrous, or second floetz 

 gypsum ; and he places both above chalk. (Vid. Brong. Mine- 

 ralogie.) If Werner had had the folly and presumption to 

 maintain that his system was complete, and that no other rock 

 was to be discovered, that therefore he had fixed and ascertained 

 the individual place of every stratum around the whole, globe, he 

 would have justly merited the severe and bitter censure of the 

 revievv'er of the essay of Cuvier and Brongniart. 



But the author of the remarks is not satisfied with this com- 

 mentary on the system itself = in his zeal he ventures still furtlier, 

 and maintains that the disciples of the VVernerian school so cloud 

 their descriptions of the mineialogy of countries with a barbarous 

 and uncouth nomenclature, that we must turn from them in dis- 

 gust. He says, '^The clearness with which this essay is written^ 

 and the absence of all technical language, except vv'here it is abso- 

 lutely necessary, we consider as great recommendations. The 

 geologists of the Wernerian school follow a method directly 

 opposite to this ; they affect a phraseology peculiar to themselves, 

 and employ a vocabulary, of which the har^h and uncouth terms^ 

 when closely examined, have not the precision to which every 

 other consideration appears to be sacrificed. Descriptions drawn 

 up in this way excite little interest, and render a branch of know- 

 ledge extremely inaccessible, which in its own nature is calcu- 

 lated to be very generally understood. The darkness which the 

 language of Werner hav^ thrown round all his doctrines seems as 

 if intended to protect them from the eyes of the vulgar and 

 uninitiated ; and it may be doubted whether the Eleusinian rites 

 threw a darker veil over the opinions of the Greek mystics, than 

 the vocabulary of Freyberg does over the dogmas of the Saxon 

 school. The consequence is, that of all the mineralogical 

 descriptions which the Wernerian school has produced, we are 

 persuaded none will be found so satisfactory as that which is now 

 before us.'' 



If this Wernerian nomenclature be so barbarous and unseemlv, 

 so totally unfit for the purposes of science, and so repulsive to 

 good taste, how does it happen that Cuvier and Brongniart, so 

 justly panegyrised by the reviewer, use it throughout their whole 

 essay. The technical words that occur in it are but few in 

 number, because the series of rocks consists of but few separate 

 species, and they do not include many simple minerals. The 

 following are the rocks and minerals mentioned in the treatise: 

 chalk, limestone, marl, gypsum, clay, sand, sandstone, mill- 

 stone, menelite, hoi'nstooe, fiint, jasper, and siienite. Now this 

 nomenclature is precisely the same as that used by the Wernerian 

 school. Even the reviewer himself, in spite of his antipathy to 

 every thing Wernerian., is forced to use the same nomenclature^ 



