VIII
THE GROWTH OF MINERALOGY FROM 1818 TO 1918
By WILLIAM E. FORD
Mineralogy to-day would certainly be generally considered one of the minor members of the group of the Geological Sciences. We commonly look upon it in the light of an useful handmaiden, whose chief function is to serve the other branches, and we are inclined to forget that, in reality, mineralogy was the first to be recognized and, with considerable truth, might be claimed as the mother of all the others. Minerals, because of their frequent beauty of color and form, and their uses as gems and as ornamental stones, were the first inorganic objects to excite wonder and comment and we find many of them named and described in very early writings. Theophrastus (368–284 B. C.), a famous pupil of Aristotle, wrote a treatise “On Stones” in which he collected a large amount of information about minerals and fossils. The elder Pliny (23–79 A. D.), more than three centuries later, in his Natural History, described and named many of the commoner minerals. At this time it was natural that no clear distinction should be drawn between minerals and rocks, or even between minerals and fossils. As long as all study of the materials of the earth’s crust was concerned with their superficial characters, it was logical to include everything under the single head. There were some writers in the early centuries of the Christian era, however, who believed that fossils had been derived from living animals but the majority considered them to be only strange and unusual forms of minerals. During many succeeding centuries little was added to the general store of geological knowledge and it was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century, that any further notable progress was made. Agricola (1494–1555) was a physician, who, for a time, lived in the mining district of Joachimstal. He studied and described the minerals that he collected there. He was the first to give careful and critical descriptions of minerals, of their crystals and general physical properties. Unfortunately, he also did not realize the fundamental distinction between fossils and minerals, and probably because of his influence this error persisted, even until the middle of the eighteenth century. But, naturally, as the number of scientific students increased, the number of those who rejected this conclusion grew, until at last, the true character of fossils was established. The keen interest in minerals and fossils which was aroused by this controversy, together with the rapid extension of mining operations, drew the attention of scientific men to other features of the earth’s surface and led to a more extended investigation of its characters and thus to the development of geology proper. It is interesting to note also that mineralogy was the first of the Geological Sciences to be officially recognized and taught by the universities.
Although, as has been shown, the beginnings of mineralogy lie in the remote past, the science, as we know it to-day, can be said to have had practically its whole growth during the last one hundred years. Of the more than one thousand mineral species that may now be considered as definitely established hardly more than two hundred were known in the year 1800 and these were only partially described or understood. It is true that Haüy, the “father of crystallography,” had before this date discovered and formulated the laws of crystal symmetry, and had shown that rational relations existed between the intercepts upon the axes of the different faces of a crystal. It was not until 1809, however, that Wollaston described the first form of a reflecting goniometer, and thus made possible the beginning of exact investigation of crystals. The distinctions between the different crystal groups were developed by Bernhardi, Weiss and Mohs between the years 1807 and 1820, while the Naumann system of crystal symbols was not proposed until 1826. The fact that doubly refracting minerals also polarize light was discovered by Malus in 1808, and in 1813 Brewster first recognized the optical differences between uniaxial and biaxial minerals. The modern science of chemistry was also just beginning to develop at this period, enabling mineralogists to make analyses more and more accurately and thus by chemical means to establish the true character of minerals, and to properly classify them.
Franz von Kobell, on page 372 of his “Geschichte der Mineralogie,” somewhat poetically describes the condition of the science at this period as follows: “With the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth centuries exact investigations in mineralogy first began. The mineralogist was no longer content with approximate descriptions of minerals, but strove rather to separate the essential facts from those that were accidental, to discover definite laws, and to learn the relations between the physical and chemical characters of a mineral. The use of mathematics gave a new aspect to crystallography, and the development of the optical relationships opened a magnificent field of wonderful phenomena which can be described as a garden gay with flowers of light, charming in themselves and interesting in their relations to the forces which guide and govern the regular structure of matter.”
In the Medical Repository (vol. 2, p. 114, New York, 1799), there occurs the following notice: “Since the publication of the last number of the Repository an Association has been formed in the city of New York ‘for the investigation of the Mineral and Fossil bodies which compose the fabric of the Globe; and, more especially, for the Natural and Chemical History of the Minerals and Fossils of the United States,’ by the name and style of The American Mineralogical Society.” With this announcement is given an advertisement in which the society “earnestly solicits the citizens of the United States to communicate to them, on all mineralogical subjects, but especially on the following: 1, concerning stones suitable for gun flints; 2, concerning native brimstone or sulphur; 3, concerning salt-petre; 4, concerning mines and ores of lead.” Further the society asks “that specimens of all kinds be sent to it for examination and determination.”
This marks apparently the beginning of the serious study of the science of mineralogy in the United States. From this time on, articles on mineralogical topics appeared with increasing frequency in the Medical Repository. Most of these were brief and were largely concerned with the description of the general characters and modes of occurrence of various minerals. Nothing of much moment from the scientific point of view appeared until many years later, but the growing interest in things mineralogical was clearly manifest. An important stimulus to this increasing knowledge and discussion was furnished by Col. George Gibbs who, about the year 1808, brought to this country a large and notable mineral collection. In the Medical Repository (vol. 11, p. 213, 1808), is found a notice of this collection, a portion of which is reproduced below:
“Gibbs’ grand Collection of Minerals.
One of the most zealous cultivators of mineralogy in the United States is Col. G. Gibbs of Rhode Island and his taste and his fortune have concurred in making him the proprietor of the most extensive and valuable assortment of minerals that probably exists in America.
This rich collection consists of the cabinets possessed by the late Mons. Gigot D’Orcy of Paris and the Count Gregoire de Rozamonsky, a Russian nobleman, long resident in Switzerland. To which the present proprietor has added a number, either gathered by himself on the spot, or purchased in different parts of Europe.... The whole consists of about twenty thousand specimens. A small part of this collection was opened to amateurs at Rhode Island, the last summer, and the next, if circumstances permit, the remainder will be exposed.”