£06 Professor Mohs’s General Reflections on 
It will readily be conceived, that the knowledge derived from 
the observation of natural objects must speedily have been ex- 
tended, as it was in immediate connection with the wants of the 
human race. But, with its extension, several obstacles to the 
facility of its application were also introduced. It had been as- 
certained, that certain animals, certain plants, certain minerals^ 
possessed certain properties, and could be advantageously em- 
ployed for various purposes ; but the want of a method render- 
ed it impossible to select them from the general mass ; and, no 
doubt, the whole compass of the observations and experiments, 
alluded to above, would have been lost, or rendered useless, had 
no measures been taken to prevent this deplorable result. Na- 
tural bodies, and of these the ones especially which were most 
useful or remarkable, and therefore most generally known, were 
then described , in order that they might be recognised, by con- 
sidering their properties ; and thus, what had previously been a 
mere narration, was now, in part at least, transformed into a de- 
scription of natural productions, or Natural Description *. 
When, afterwards, natural productions were investigated, not 
merely on account of their utility, when it was rather their great 
variety, and admirable arrangement, that excited the prevailing 
* If it be true, that description, when employed about events, constitutes 
History, then, certainly, the usual acceptation of the appellation, Natural His- 
tory, is erroneous. That relation, which aspires to the dignity of History, must 
embrace not only an exact and full description of the object, or thing treated of, 
but also ascertain the relative time, as well as manner, of its production, and the 
change and alteration, if any, it has undergone, in arriving at its present state. 
Natural History, therefore, comprehends two distinct branches, the one making us 
acquainted with natural objects, as they are presented by nature, furnishing us 
with sufficient data, and easily applicable criteria, to distinguish them from each 
other; and this is Natural Description. The other branch, Natural History, pro- 
perly so called, consists in the investigation of the ancient and original state of na- 
tural objects, and the successive changes and alterations they have undergone, till 
the present time. Thus, in Botany and Zoology, the questions, Were all animals 
and plants originally created as we at present find them, or have they, by degrees, 
assumed the specific forms they now possess ? Have certain species become ex- 
tinct ? In what order, and whither have they migrated ? What change has cli- 
mate produced ? In Mineralogy, at what period, during the formation of our earth, 
and under what circumstances, has a peculiar species of mineral been produced ? 
Has it remained unaltered, or has it undergone changes ? — All these questions are 
of historical import, and belong to this department. — Jameson's Mineralogy , 1st 
edit. vol. i. p. 9. 
