224 
REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES 
neral system, which was the latest received in his code of nature, 
consisted at the last edition in 1768, of two hundred and thirty-six 
oCfavo pages. The treasures of this reign of nature are divided by 
Li nnvEus into three different classes; namely, in stones (Petrcc), 
minerals ( Miner cc), and fossils (Fossilia), the latter into various orders, 
and the whole into fifty-four genera. Linnaeus gave a singular hy- 
pothesis respe&ing the origin of stones, which was peculiar to himself. 
In his opinion, the water is the ■prima materia of the earth, and its 
sediment is clay. If sea-water be mixed with rain-water, the salty 
particles of the brine settle at the bottom like sand. Rotten plants 
are changed into a black dustlike earth ; but all that belongs to the ani- 
mal reign turns into chalk. Linnaeus assigns these as the four prin- 
cipal matters from which all the rest spring by crystallization, solu- 
tion, &c. &c. 
This hypothesis, like his classification of the mineral system, met 
with many contradictions. It cannot be denied, that Linns us dis- 
played in this part of natural history of which the classification is most 
difficult, less greatness than he did in all his other works, and for that 
reason did not become its legislator. During the latter part of his life, and 
since his death, many discoveries have been made in mineralogy, deeper 
knowledge has been acquired, and new means devised*. His country- 
men Wallerius Crongstaedt, Bergmann and his own pupil, 
* “ Linnjeus,” says Condorcet in his Eulogium, “ classed the minerals almost entirely 
« by their external forms : the chymists have made objeitions to this method, which it is 
“ very difficult to answer ; but the naturalists, or at least the pupils of Linnaeus, might 
«« have made objeftions equally powerful against a system of which the chyrmcal analysis 
“ formed she first characters ; in other respefts when LiNNiEVS published his method, the 
“ analysis of mineral substances had not yet been brought to that degree of perfection to 
** which one of his countrymen, the celebrated Bergmann, has since brought it. 
the 
