This, the most important point of the arrangement being thus borrowed from chemistry, which, like a guardian angel, should always hover round and direct the labours of mineralogy: the other subdivisions only require a characteristic clearness to assist the memory the chief object in any system of natural history), and an appropriation to the subject so as to satisfy the judgment and inagination. From the earliest productions of Linnæus to the present time, the word STRUCTURE has been applied, with classical propriety, to denote a most striking and characteristic distinction between mineral substances, whether on a great or on a small scale.' p. viii.

Leaving this singular definition of the word structure to the consideration of our readers, we have only to remark, that, instead of the sub-species, varieties, and sub-varieties,' as they have been called, with great penury and uncouthness of lan guage; Mr. P. out of the riches of his classical stores produces the terms aspect, variety, diversity, and lineament !

Having advanced thus far, the next step is, to shew the incalculable value of his own system, which he attempts by instancing the embarrassments of his predecessors. Whether he can gain disciples simple enough to believe, that the difficulty of distinguishing between different kinds of minerals, is removed by calling them modes and aspects, instead of species ánd varieties, we know not; but this is really and truly the sole amount of his pretension, notwithstanding it is cloaked beneath four pages of extract from Werner, (whom he is equally ready to use and abuse ;) half a page from Ainsworth, to instruct us in the ancient and classical senses' of the word species; and a page from Saussure: notwithstanding, too, this division of his work is enlivened with a sneer at the truly risible pedantry of Milton,' whose logic was the art of talking nonsense according to a fixed method;' a blow at the prolix, confused and digressive style of Dolomieu' and his strange, very curious, and original specimen of a definition!' and a thrust at Werner's truly German distinctions:' and lastly, notwithstanding the curious information, that the word species chiefly belongs, with the greater part of the Linnean language, to a modern latinity so barbarous, as even to confound gender and cases and many others of the commonest rules of grammar.'

.

The second section treats of the order of the distinctive characters. These he has arranged in the following succession: texture, hardness, fracture, fragments, weight, lustre, transparency; to which,' says he,colour is sometimes added though the most vague and insignificant of all the characteristics. This last observation is only very partially true, as there are minerals in which colour is of the greatest consequence and perfectly distinctive, as in several of the lead and

iron ores, though certainly it cannot be made indiscriminately of equal importance in every case.

The different comparative degrees of these characteristics, have been generally denoted by the ratio of numbers, the extremes of which indicated the maximum and minimum in which such a property could exist. It is difficult, no doubt, in such an arbitrary scale, to attach precise ideas to the num. bers; but the difficulty arises from our want of means to compare the intensity of the characteristics themselves. Mr. Pinkerton, therefore, only renders bad worse, by introducing a set of terms to express this ratio, whose relation to one another is equally indistinct. His terms for weight, are pumicose, carbonose, siderose, and barytose; for hardness cretic, gypsic, marmoric, basaltic, felsparic, crystalic, oorundic. Now, it is scarcely possible even for Mr. Pinkerton to suppose himself a jot the wiser when these terms are applied to the substances from which they are borrowed, as when coal is said to be of a carbonose weight, and felspar of a felsparic hardness. And when they are applied to other substances, unless you remember the order in which he has arranged them, that is, unless you reduce them to numbers in the mind, you have still no scale of comparison with minerals in general. You simply learn that this or the other substance is as hard as corundum, or as heavy as barytes, without knowing whether corundum is one of the harder or softer minerals, or whether barytes is heavier or lighter than pumice. How greatly our language has been enriched by these ingenious adjectives we do not pretend to determine, but must inform our readers on the part of the author, that

While some recent authors of mineralogy pollute the classical language of our fathers, with an inundation of barbarous German words, derived from the vulgar dialects of illiterate miners, who, of course, first ol:served the distinction between mineral bodies; it became the more an object of ambition to treat this difficult subject with such a degree of classical purity, as not to disgust the eye of taste, contemn the discussions of grammar, or vitiate the eternal tenor of our language.' p. xx.

The quotations in this section are: Dr. Townson on Texture, and Werner on Hardness, which are given with due exactness, even to Werner's note, informing us that knives, files, magnifiers, &c. are to be met with, well made and adapted, at Mr. Schubert's, Mechanic to the Academy of Mines, Fryberg.' And lest the beginner might suspect that the hardness of minerals is to be tried by his teeth, he is distinctly reminded four times, that the proper instrument for this púrpose is the knife.

The third section is entitled Remarks on Werner's Geognosy, or System of Rocks.' These begin with the assurance, that we can hope to observe little exceeding the three thousandth part of the semidiameter of the earth. Now Chimboraço is 20,000 feet above the level of the sea, and were the strata placed in the most unfavourable situation, that is, horizontally, we might still reasonably hope to become accurately acquainted with so much of the earth's diameter. Nay, even the strata of our own country present a succession amounting probably to above three miles, which, arithmetically expressed, will convince Mr. Pinkerton that there can be no difficulty in observing a portion at least three times as large as lie supposes. We are, however, very much inclined to suspect, that Mr. Pinkerton's ideas of stratification are far from being 'substantial and tangible.' He complains that there are not sufficient proofs 'that granite is the universally radical rock,' because 'if we examine the accounts of the substances found at the greatest depths in coal mines and other excavations, there is no appearance of granite!' p. xxx. He seems to think that plains, as being nearer the centre of the earth, have lower strata than the mountains. p. xliii: and seriously hints that coal may be expected in Surry, if it be true that iron is generally an indication of that substance. p. 96. He is also so anxious to disprove the necessity of studying rocks in nature, that we are involuntarily reminded of the animal, who found the fashion of no tails so peculiarly convenient and becoming*. It is therefore by no means a matter of astonishment, that he dissents from Werner, (and indeed every other author in existence,) and refuses to adapt his work to his system, for

If a work of petralogy were founded upon this theory, it must fall with it; and no writer of judgement or industry, would choose to risk his labour upon such an uncertain foundation.' p. xxxi.

* Mr. Pinkerton's arguments upon this subject are of such a very homely kind, that we cannot avoid giving them in his own words, for the consolation of such of our readers as may happen to be in the same predica

ment :

Petralogy, therefore, or the knowledge of rocks, must, like the other branches of mineralogy, be studied in cabinets as well as in nature; and in the substances themselves, not in supposed theoretical positions; for if the student cannot distinguish a rock without these adventititious aids, (nature and theoretical positions), which in the great variety of nature, will themselves often lead to false conclusions, he may be pronounced as truly ignorant of the subject, as he who cannot distinguish gems without being informed of their countries, sites, and gangarts. And this would be the more absurd, as it is self evident, as already observed, that large substances must present more palpable and more numerous characteristics, than the minute.' p. xxxiii.

In section the fourth, our author pleads for the admission of 'iron,not as a metal, but as an earth.' His meaning, as far as we are able to discover it, is, that since iron imparts characteristic properties to several minerals, it ought to afford a title under which they might be arranged; but we confess that we are unable to divine why it is not to be admitted as a metal, which it must and will remain whether in the form of carbonate, oxyde, or any other chemical combination. Mr. Pinkerton adduces Sir H. Davy's recent discoveries in his defence, since they

evince that the alkaline earths, that is the calcareous, magnesian, barytic, strontianic, are of a metallic nature or yield peculiar metals, while he suspects the other earths to be in the like predicament (as the siliceous has since proved), it would be absurd to reject iron as an earth, merely because it yields a metal. p. xli.

But the fact is, that though Sir Humphry's experiments have brought the earths under the appellation of metals, we are by no means at liberty to call the metals earths, or to make the two terms synonymous, unless we intend to render one or the other superfluous. The earths still remain united by so many common properties, and separated from the other metals by so many distinctions, that we must preserve them as a particular class, either by giving them a new name, or, which is evidently more rational, by new modelling the definition of their old appellation. Perhaps their retaining a stronger attraction for oxygen than that of carbon, even in the highest degree of heat which we are capable of producing, would be sufficient. At any rate, we protest against reestablishing the old reign of the metallic calces under the name of earths, and the needless multiplication of appellations by calling oxyde of iron, sidegea and siderous earth.

The introduction is closed with a fifth section, which contains miscellaneous observations. The first ascribes the slow progress of mineralogy to its being too wide for the labours of one man; and extols the utility of general systems or compilations,' concluding with the remark that,' In this also, as in the other sciences, more genius is required to build a system, than to make observations. In the latter, Newton must yield to Herschel.' p. xliii. The inference intended, we leave to our readers, lest we should offend Mr. Pinkerton's modesty. The second observation is on petralogy and geology, and only proves that he knows nothing about either. The third exposes the futility of small tours. When an author in his cabinet, studies the whole globe, and the collective labours of two thousand years, these little journeys only impress him as puerile excursions; and, in conversation, he regrets to find

the smallest tourists the greatest boasters.' p. xliv. We have found them surpassed by one who, we shrewdly suspect, never made a geological tour in his life. In the 4th, on the study of rocks, we are told that The vagueness of ideas in the works of Dolomieu and Faujas, and many other observers, is such, that nothing can be learned.' p. xlv. Yet Mr. Pinkerton condescendingly honours the former by borrowing trifling extracts from his works, to the amount of nearly sixty, and from the latter about twenty pages. The observations on exact nomenclature would have been useful, if the author had applied them to himself. Of the apology for his plan we have already given a specimen.

From this ample account of that part of Mr. Pinkerton's work, which may with some degree of propriety be esteemed his own, our readers will be able to form an idea of the manner in which the other original portions of his book are executed. They will every where meet with the same vagueness, or rather absence of ideas, concealed beneath a profusion of sonorous words; the same fruitless attempt to solve the difficulty of distinguishing between allied substances, by giving them new names instead of new definitions; the same deplorable proofs of ignorance in the fundamental and elementary principles of mineralogical science; the same supercilious contempt for every writer except one; and the same persevering determination, in spite of all these disqualifications, to make a book. To prove these assertions, we need only open either of the volumes. We select, at random, the fifth, or Calcareous Domain. After informing us that calcareous earth is an important substance, produced by burning limestone, &c. that its taste is hot and acrid,' that it is incapable of fusion,' that limestone is composed of lime and carbonic acid,' and mortar of quick lime and sand,' &c. and acknowledging that 'these observations are chiefly extracted from Kirwan, Thompson, and Patrin,' though he might also have learnt them from a schoolboy, he mentions Sir Humphrey Davy's discovery, and concludes his introduction thus:

In some works of mineralogy, the first three modes of this domain, (marble, konite, and limestone,) and even the three succeeding (alabastrite, limeslate, and coral rock), have been arranged as mere subspecies, or varieties of limestone. Strict chemical analysis may probally discover a different proportion of ingredients, as, for example, more water of crystallisation in marble, and more or less silex or argil; and there is, at any rate, a difference in the mode of combination. But the chief use of any system being to assist the memory, even the strict precision of terms becomes mere pedantry, if it be not subservient to this main object. Too large masses of colour, or too small, will render the picture equally ipelegant and obscure.' Vol. I. pp. 378, 379.