IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
11 
path of progress in this as in other directions, hut the results are highly 
gratifying, both in themselves and in the light they have let in upon the 
problem of classification of minerals. The key to the origin of minerals 
has been found in their artificial reproduction, using similar agents and 
like conditions, as in nature. Not more than half a dozen minerals 
remain that have not been artificially reproduced, so successful has been 
the work. 
One result of this line of investigation has been a better delimitation 
of mineral families, even new members having been added by this process. 
By synthesis it has been discovered that many minerals, especially those 
of metamorphic origin, are never pure in nature, their exact composi- 
tion not having been known until they had been artificially reproduced. 
Geology has profited by this work also. For example the origin of 
granite had long baffled the geologists, but synthesis conclusively proved 
that granite could not be formed by purely igneous fusion, thus confirm- 
ing the theory that it was of mixed origin. What the future has in store 
for the science of mineralogy it is impossible even to conjecture, but it 
would seem that its foundations at least have been broadly and securely 
laid. 
In the consideration of my subject thus far, attention has been directed 
exclusively to the work accomplisheu in Europe. We now turn briefly 
to mineralogy in America. Practically no effort was made in this country 
along this line during the eighteenth century. Professor Silliman says 
that in 1803 it was a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain among our- 
selves even the names of the most common stones and minerals; and one 
might inquire earnestly and long before he could find any one to identify 
even quartz, feldspar, or hornblende among the simple minerals, or gran- 
its, porphyry, or trap among the rocks. There were at this time no text 
books, cabinets of minerals, or apparatus to aid or stimulate the latent 
interest of the people in this subject. In 1798 in New York the beginning 
of effort along this line was made by the organization of the American 
Mineralogical Society, of which Dr. Samuel Lathan Mitchell was the 
first president and the most active member. Prom this time interest and 
activity in the kindred sciences of chemistry and mineralogy grew with 
characteristic American spirit and enterprise. Chairs were established In 
the colleges and steps were taken to have these sciences taught in the 
higher schools. As a result of this activity a catalog of American miner- 
als with their localities was published in 1825 by Dr. Samuel Robinson. 
This catalog contained over three hundred pages. Among the early 
promoters of this science, four stand forth with marked prominence, Dr. 
Archibald Bruce, Colonel George Gibbs, Professor Parker Cleaveland and 
Professor Benjamin Silliman. 
Dr. Bruce, by the exchange of American specimens and by travel in 
Europe, during which he made the acquaintance of Hauy and others 
eminent in the science, gathered together an extensive cabinet of choice 
minerals, wkich with another collection made by Mr. B. D. Perkins was 
made readily accessible to the general public. They proved a remarkable, 
stiipulus to the popular interest in mineralogy. Dr. Bruce also estab- 
lished the American Journal of Mineralogy, the first purely scientific 
