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PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



find the ordinary text-books of his science but little calculated to 

 arouse the interest or excite the enthusiasm of students. I am 

 sure that the energy of my assent must at least have assured my 

 friend of the strength of my convictions on the subject. 



Too long, indeed, has the accumulated mass of mineral-lore recalled 

 the grim vision of the seer of Chebar. In that gruesome valley the 

 wail of the student, " The bones are very dry ! " has been echoed by 

 the sigh of the teacher, " Can these bones live ? " But now from the 

 four winds of heaven come the constructive ideas of many minds — 

 from Scandinavia and from France, from Germany and from the 

 United States — and in obedience to this influence behold " a great 

 shaking " in the formless mass. Scattered facts, isolated observa- 

 tions, imperfect generalizations, and tentative hypotheses are falling 

 together " bone to his bone," and are building up a sound body 

 of mineralogical knowledge, into which, the spirit of geological 

 thought entering, Mineralogy shall stand forth a living science ! 



