8 
Cuvier's Historical Eloge of Werner. 
ways brought himself under the condemnation of that funda- 
mental law, of which the properties he wished to employ are on- 
ly corollaries. 
Werner had thus devised a language for describing minerals; 
—he had arranged them ; — he had assigned to each its distinc- 
tive characters, and had, in this manner, formed a Mineralogy, 
strictly so called, or what he named Oryctognosy^ that is to say, 
the knowledge of fossils. 
The history of their arrangement on the globe, or what he 
called Geognosy^ that is the knowledge of the Earth, was the 
third point of view under which he considered them. 
The Earth, in fact, is composed of mineral masses, and mo- 
dern observers have satisfied themselves, that these masses are 
not thrown together at random. 
Pallas, during his laborious travels to the extremity of Asia, 
had remarked that their superposition could be referred to fun- 
damental laws. 
Saussure and De Luc in traversing, in many directions, the 
most elevated mountain chains of Europe, had confirmed these 
joint observations. 
Werner, without quitting his small province, has carried the 
knowledge of these laws to its utmost, and he has been able to 
read, in these laws, the history of all the revolutions of which 
they are the work. 
Tracing every bed throughout its whole length, without per- 
mitting himself to be led astray by the interruptions which di- 
vide it, by the mountain crests and difierent elevations which 
rise above it, he has determined, in some sort, their different 
ages, and the age of all the accessory matters which are inter- 
mingled with the principal substances. 
The different fluids by which the globe has been surrounded, 
—the changes of their composition, — the violent movements by 
which each change has been accompanied ; — all of these have 
been found written, to his eye, in the monuments which they 
have left. 
A universal and tranquil ocean deposites, in great masses, the 
primitive rocks, — those rocks which are distinctly crystallised, 
and in which silica is the first predominating ingredient. Gra- 
nite forms the base on which all the others rest. To granite 
