Popular mineralogy : comprising a familiar account of minerals and their uses

Preface

Mineralogy has been less generally studied than the kindred departments of natural history, more from the want of elementary teaching, than from any lack of inviting interest in the subject. Inorganic substances do not, perhaps, awaken so ready a sympathy in the observer as the development of animal or vegetable life, with its varieties of form and function : yet an interest, almost equivalent to this, is presented in the study of their

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PREFACE.

combinations and uses. The history and experimental analysis of mineral bodies are productive of valuable results to those who labour in the science with the aid of abstruse technical works, and many would, doubtless, be induced to turn their attention to the subject, if there were more and simpler opportunities of acquiring a know¬ ledge of its first principles.

I have endeavoured, in the following pages, to treat of the science of Mineralogy in a popular and intelligible manner, foreshowing the difficulties in its acquirement, as well as expatiating upon its attendant pleasures. The mineral substances described are about three hundred in number, eighty of which are figured, comprising such

PREFACE.

Vll as are most remarkable for their beauty, for their rarity, or for their useful application in the arts ; and I have been careful to select those which are most easily accessible to the young collector.

The plates, executed by myself in lithography, represent the first attempt that has been made to illustrate minerals by that process. Tew objects in natural history are more difficult to portray with pictorial effect, having little definition of form, whilst it is impossible for an artist to do justice to their transparency or metallic hues. The specimens figured have been selected chiefly from my own cabinet, but I am indebted for several to those of my father (Mr. G. B. Sowerby) and Mr. Wright. To my

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PREFACE.

father I am also much obliged, for his care in revising the proof-sheets. To Sir A. Crichton and to Mr. Brooke my thanks are due, for the presentation of several interest¬ ing substances, which have been of great value to me in preparing the descriptions. Frequent recourse has been had in the compilation of this work to Alger's edition of Phillips's ‘ Introduction to Mineralogy,' and it only remains for me to refer my readers to that excellent treatise, for further information on the subject.

H. S.

70, Great Russell Street, October 5th, 1850.

POPULAR MINERALOGY.