( SH ) ' 
III. NATURAL HISTORY. 
MINERALOGY. 
. ijtognosy of the Appennmes , — Professor Hausmann, who 
is at present engaged in geognostical investigations in Italy, in 
the Appennines as far as Florence, found no primitive strata, 
the principal portion of this part of the range being of transition 
rocks, viz. grey wacke, clay-slate, limestone, and various sub- 
ordinate beds. In many hills and valleys, the rocks were al- 
most identical with the transition strata of the Hartz; yet in a 
general view, the Appennine range of transition rocks is distin- 
guished by two striking peculiarities, viz. the great abunda;nce of 
serpentine, and of diallage-rock (composed of diallage and saus- 
surite,) and the vast beds of marble, of the finest kinds, in some 
of which are situated the celebrated marble jquarries of Garrara. 
^2. Minerahgical Society at Dresden.-^ A mineralogical so- 
ciety has been established at Dresden, and one volume of Me- 
moirs has just appeared, under the title, Auswahl aus den 
Schriften der unter Werners mitwirkung gestifteten ‘ Gresells- 
chaftfiir Mineralogie zu Dresden.” We have received a copy 
of this work, and shall give an account of it in our next Number. 
S3. New Systems ^ Ci'ystallogj'aphy.’-^l^he descYiptiYe ci'ys^ 
tallographies of Rome de Lisle and Werner, are well known, 
and also the mathematical system of Haliy. Very lately, this 
most important subject has engaged the attention . of three 
learned and distinguished mineralogists, viz. Professor Mohs, 
successor to Werner in Freyberg ; Dr Weiss, Professor of mine- 
ralogy, in Berlin, and M. Brochant, Professor of mineralogy in 
Paris. We are in possession of a full account of the method of 
Mohs, and also that of Weiss ; and Brochant has explained his 
views in a work we have just received. Mr Breithaupt of Frey- 
berg, who published the last volumes of HolFmann'’s Mineralogy, 
has announced in Gilberfs Annalen der Physik, that he is enga- 
ged in framing a system of crystallography, which is at the same 
time philosophical, chemical, and according to the principles of 
natural history.— In our next number, we hope to be able to pre- 
sent our readers with a condensed view of these different systems. 
34. Heron de Ville Fosse, De la Richesse miner ale. — The 
valuable work of Heron de Ville, Fosse, De la Richesse ini- 
ijieraie,” in three volumes quarto, with a magnificent iblio vo- 
