An apartment is specially appropriated to the systematic order adopted by HAÜY in his new treatise on mineralogy; another is reserved for the method of WERNER.

In both these oryctognostic collections, minerals of all countries are indiscriminately admitted. They are arranged by classes, orders, genera, species, and varieties, with the denominations adopted by the author of the method, and consequently designated by specific names in French for HAÜY'S method, and in German for that of WERNER. The proximity of the two apartments where they are exhibited, affords every advantage for comparing both methods, and acquiring an exact knowledge of mineralogical synonymy. Each of the two methods contains also a geological collection of rocks and various aggregates, classed and named after the principles which their respective authors have thought fit to adopt.

The other apartments are likewise furnished with tables covered with glazed cases, where are exhibited, in a manner very advantageous for study, the most remarkable minerals of every description from foreign countries, among which are:

  1. A numerous series of minerals from Russia, such as red chromate of lead, white carbonate of lead, green phosphate of lead; native copper, green and blue carbonate of copper; gold ore from Berezof; iron ore, granitical rocks, fossil shells, in good preservation, from the banks of the Moscorika, and others in the siliceous state, jaspers, crystals of quartz, beril, &c.
  2. A collection from the iron and copper mines of Sweden, as well as various crystals and rocks from the same country.
  3. A very complete and diversified collection of minerals from the country of Saltzburg.
  4. Another of substances procured in England, such as fluates and carbonates of lime from Derbyshire; pyrites, copper and lead ore, zinc, and tin from Cornwall.
  5. A collection of tin ore, cobalt, uranite, &c. from Saxony.
  6. A series of minerals from Simplon, St. Gothard, the Tyrol, Transylvania, as well as from Egypt and America. All these articles, without being striking from their size, and other accessory qualities to be remarked in costly specimens, incontestably present a rich fund of instruction to persons delirous of fathoming science, by multiplying the points of view under which mineral productions may be observed.

Such is the present state of the mineralogical collection of the Conseil des Mines, which the superintendants will, no doubt, with time and attention, bring to the highest degree of perfection. It is open to the public every Monday and Thursday: but, on the other days of the week, amateurs and students have access to it.

A few years before the revolution, France was still considered as destitute of an infinite number of mineral riches, which were thought to belong exclusively to several of the surrounding countries. Germany was quoted as a country particularly favoured, in this respect, by Nature. Yet France is crossed by mountains similar to those met with in Germany, and these mountains contain rocks of the same species as those of that country which is so rich in minerals. What has happened might therefore have been foreseen; namely, that, when intelligent men, with an experienced eye, should examine the soil of the various departments of the Republic, they would find in it not only substances hitherto considered as scarce, but even several of those whose existence there had not yet been suspected. Since the revolution, the following are the

Principal Mineral Substances discovered in France.

Dolomite in the mountains of Vosges and in the Pyrenees.

Carburet of iron or plumbago, in the south peak of Bigorre. The same variety has been been found near Argentière, and the valley of Chamouny, department of Mont-Blanc.

A rock of the appearance of porphyry, with a calcareous base, in the same valley of Chamouny.