40 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



REVIEW. 



MUMORIJLS, Scientific and Literary/, of ANDREW CROSSF, the jElectrician. 

 London — Longman and Co., 1857. 



The writer of tMs judicious and unpretending work is tlie widow of tlie now 

 celebrated gentleman, whose biography she has so judiciously penned. " Honour be to 

 those, to whom Honour is due !'* 



Mrs. Crosse deserves the thanlcs of the reading, intelligent public, for the honest, 

 modest book she has offered to the memory of her deceased husband. 



It is not our intention to enter into the history of Mr. Crosse's school exploits, his 

 early taste for electricity and chemistry, his lightning-catching apparatus, or his 

 dissection of thunder-clouds. Our aim in the pages of this journal wiU be rather to 

 recommend good books, than to forestall them by extracts. We shall therefore 

 merely point out certain Geological bearings developed by the Electrician's experiments, 

 and leave our readers to study the work for themselves. 



Mr. Crosse was famous for the use he made of the electric current in the processes 

 of crystallization. From his Voltaic Battery he produced " Two hundred varieties of 

 minerals " — Sulphides of Lead, Iron, Copper, Silver, and Antimony, with many other 

 compounds, made their appearance in his magic forge ; also " Quartz and Chalcedony, 

 with Carbonate of Strontia, Barytes and Lead." ^ 



This part of the subject must ever be most interesting to the Geologist and 

 Mineralogist. What problems may not these discoveries of the Electrician unfold, if 

 legitimately applied to the question of Mineral Veins, and the much-argued history of 

 Slaty Cleavage. Heat, we know, is developed by electricity, when the free passage of 

 that power is impeded, and, surely it may have an enormous effect, while thus 

 impeded, in changing the position of atoms, in segregation, compression, and 

 dilatation. The Galvanic Battery is far more likely to give the Geologist the clue 

 to the history of Cleavage than the compression of mud layers in a tin case or a deal 

 box. The development of the little mite "Acarus Crossii," by electricity, caused a 

 wonderful sensation some years ago, and we can remember when Mr. Crosse was 

 taunted as " Atheist," " an impious philosopher," the " disturber of the peace of j 

 families," and, "a reviler of our holy religion." After a time, the true revilers | 

 learned that there was no foundation for their attacks upon a character they could not 

 appreciate, and, in justice, they should make themselves acquainted with the liistory of j 

 that good man, who was *' neither an Atheist, nor a Materialist, nor a self-imagined 

 Creator, but an humble and lowly reverencer of that great Being of whose laws his 

 accusers seemed to have so lost sight." 



Men, who write tirades on subjects of which they are utterly and grossly ignorant, 

 would do well to learn a lesson from the Life and Memorials of Andrew Crosse. 



