On the corundum stone from Asia / [Charles Francis Greville].

  • Charles Francis Greville
Date:
[1798]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the corundum stone from Asia / [Charles Francis Greville]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    merit. Louis Bourguet of Neufchatel, in his Lettres sur la Formation des Sets et des Crystaux. Amst. 1729, 120, connect¬ ed, by observation and measure, triangular and rhomboidal, and cubic and pyramidal tetraedal molecules, for all different substances. His contemporary, Maurice Antoine Capel- ler,* attempted to deduce a system from geometrical prin¬ ciples; and in this state did Linnaeus find the subject, when he attempted to reduce the science of minerals to external cha¬ racters, and crystallized bodies to salts. None of the observations of Linnaeus will prove useless to science; but his system alarmed the chemists and mineralo¬ gists, who rejected every other criterion than internal charac¬ ter from analysis, and the system of Cronstedt was preferred by general assent. By this means, a spirit of controversy de¬ prived the chemist and lythologist of mutual assistance; and the general opinion was correct, on the supposition that a mixed system of chemical and external characters would be irreconcileable; but it has been admitted, even by those who most decidedly opposed Linnaeus’s system, that the best sys¬ tem of mineralogy should be founded on external and internal characters combined.-f Among the few who ventured to pro¬ fess their obligations, at the same time, to Linnaeus and to Cronstedt, was Baron Born, whose abilities and character, in addition to his distinction as one of the counsellors of mines • Frodromus Crystallographies, &c. and Littera ad Scheuzerum, ds Crystalloruni Gtneraiione. Act. Nat. Cur. Vol. IV. Append, p. 9. f Nullum itaque est dubium, quia hujusmodi methodus mixta, qu^ notis charac- teristicis tarn extrinsecis quam intrinsecis simul combinatis, est superstructa, proxime ad naturalem accedens, maximain indicans symmetriam, reliquis sit prseferenda metho- dis. J. G. WALttau/s, de Systemate Miner alogico rite condendo, §. 102.
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