62 



PEOCEEDTNGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



numerous, patient, and accurate students in that country must be 

 ascribed much of the perfection to which the methods of microscopic 

 mineralogy have now attained ; though we must not forget in this 

 connexion many most valuable contributions to the study from 

 Scandinavia, Holland, Italy, and the United States. 



As in the case of Biology, the results attained by the geologist 

 have been the means of awakening new interests and inspiring a 

 new philosophy, so in the case of Mineralogy, other problems have 

 been suggested and entirely fresh conceptions of the scope of 

 the science have followed from the development of geological 

 thought. We are thus led to regard minerals, not simply as a set 

 of curious illustrations of mathematical and chemical laws, but as 

 important factors in the evolution of the globe. Mineral collections 

 in the past have resembled greenhouses, wherein only beautiful, 

 though often abnormal, growths are admitted ; but in the future 

 they will be like the herbaria of the botanists, where mere beauties 

 of form and colouring are subordinated to the illustration of natural 

 relationships and to the elucidation of the great problems of origin 

 and development. Far be it from me to undervalue those wonder- 

 ful crystals, the choice flowers of the mineral kingdom, which adorn 

 our museums ; but as there are many plants 6f extreme scientific 

 interest which happen to possess only inconspicuous flowers, so 

 there are not a few microscopic minerals, the study of which may 

 lead us to the recognition of some of the most important laws of the 

 mineral world. 



I believe that what Geology has already done for Biology she 

 is now accomplishing for Mineralogy ; it may, indeed, be instruc- 

 tive to point out how, in every one of its departments, the 

 employment of microscopic methods and the suggestion of new lines 

 of thought are causing Mineralogy to develop in just the same direc- 

 tions that Biology has already taken before her. In this way we 

 may perhaps best convince ourselves that Mineralogy is once more 

 asserting her true position in the family of the natural sciences. 



Every Natural-History science presents us with four distinct classes 

 of problems. With respect to the objects of our study, we may 

 make inquiries concerning their forms, their actions, their relations, 

 and their origin. The answers to the first class of questions con- 

 stitute Morphology, to the second Physiology, to the third Chorology 

 or Distribution, and to the fourth JEtiology. The great problems of 

 the mineral world, as I shall proceed to show, fall under precisely 

 the same categories ; and we may perhaps gather some useful hints 



