252 On Mr. Chenevix* Attack [AfriL;^ 



tremolitey actinolitey and hornblende P Yet the primitive forms 

 of their crystals have been all found to coincide, and they have 

 been recently united by Haiiy under the same species. If Haiiy 

 go on for any length of time as he has begun, we may predict 

 that all stones will be ultimately reduced to a very small number 

 of species indeed. But such a reduction, though it may coincide 

 well enough with the views of the crystallographer, will make the 

 system quite useless to the mineralogist 3 because various mine- 

 rals will be confounded together under the same name, which it 

 is essential for him to distinguish. We request any mineralogist 

 of competent skill to look into the species called by Haiiy 

 quartz^ and see what a number of important minerals are 

 huddled together as a kind of appendage to it. Chalcedony, 

 flintj cats* eye, carnelian, opal, semiopal, pitchstone, menilite, 

 jasper, 8cc. &c. are all classed together as varieties of quartz. 

 These substances are all as distinct from quartz, and may be as 

 easily distinguished from it^ as any species in the whole system 

 of Haiiy. 



There is one principle, which Mr. Chenevix has turned into 

 ridicule, that it may be proper to notice here, because it is of 

 considerable importance in the Wernerian system, and has in- 

 duced Werner to arrange the species in a particular order, and 

 sometimes even to alter their position, when the discovery of 

 new specimens render their connection with each other more, 

 obvious than it was before. I allude to the doctrine of transi- 

 tions. According to Werner, when species approach each other 

 in their properties, specimens may be found intermediate between 

 them ; so as to possess, in a certain degree, the properties of 

 both I and these specimens may be so arranged that they shall 

 decline gradually from the properties of the one species, and 

 approach those of the other. Every mineralogist must have 

 observed such intermediate specimens between actinolite and 

 hornblende, for example, and between mica and talc. In these 

 cases the one species is said to pass into the other ; or there is 

 said to exist a transition between the one species and the other. 

 Now where is the absurdity of such a supposition ? If species 

 be merely artificial and conventional associations, surely such 

 transitions are natural, and must be expected. Indeed Mr. 

 Chenevix is forced to admit the existence of such intermediate 

 specimens 3 but he would discard them as monstrosities from the 

 attention of the mineralogist. To ridicule them is the same 

 thing as to maintain that all mineral species have been really 

 formed by nature, and are just as definite as the species in 

 zoology and botany. Yet even in zoology and botany interme- 

 diate individuals are known to exist between kindred species, and 

 they have even received a peculiar name from the cultivators of 

 these branches of knowledge. Haiiy himself admits the exigt* 



