An essay on mineralogical classification and nomenclature; with tables of the orders and species of minerals / [William Whewell].

  • Whewell, William, 1794-1866
Date:
1828
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on mineralogical classification and nomenclature; with tables of the orders and species of minerals / [William Whewell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    IV: two sects of classifiers, the mineralogists and the chemists, have each professed to apply their principle pure and unmixed, without any respect to the information derived from the others ;—the former party maintaining the necessity of excluding, in this department of the science, all reference to the analysis of a mineral; and the other following as their guide its analysis only. Hence they are independent witnesses, and any coincidence in their results may afford us substantial materials for further inference. When we begin to speculate concerning the connexion of mineralogical characters with chemical composition, perhaps the first impulse of the mind is to guess at what we may suppose to be the rule of this connexion. It seems for instance probable, that the nature and distinguish- ing character of a body should be decided by its riots It might therefore be easily supposed that its greatest ingredient, or, taking into account the doctrines of the atomic theory, perhaps the ingredient of which there should be the greatest number of particles, should determine the properties of a mineral, and consequently its place in the system. But though this hypothesis might be assumed and tried, (as it has been by most of the chemical classifiers) it is manifest that it is only one among many supposable hypotheses, and may be a false one. We can Imagine other chemical arrangements as easily as this: we can suppose that it may be the kind of the elements, and the mode in which they enter into the composition of the substance, rather than any one element, which determines the kind and class of the mimeral. For instance, instead of having a class associated by the circumstance of all its members containing tron, it may be that all the orzdes of metals, whatever be the metal, shall require to be classed together; or it may be that all the bi-oxides shall form one class, all the tr2-orides another, and so on. This is not only conceivable, but so far really the case, that several of the more recent chemical classifiers have, in arranging -the mineral species into divisions, been guided by some such chemical analogy, as well as by the leading ingredients. Thus Leonhard’s groups are ‘‘ hydrous metallic acids and their com- binations ;’’ ‘‘ anhydrous oxygenated mineral acids and _ their combinations ;”’ “ anhydrous metallic oxides ;” “* metals;” “* and other similar classes. Some of Gmelin’s divisions are “ simple hydrosulphates;” ‘‘ duple hydrosulphates ;” ‘simple silicates ;”