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Who said: “I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their arithmetical magnitude.”
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Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index M > Category: Mineral

Mineral Quotes (66 quotes)
Minerals Quotes

[Mercurial medicines] affect the human constitution in a peculiar manner, taking, so to speak, an iron grasp of all its systems, and penetrating even to the bones, by which they not only change the healthy action of its vessels, and general structure, but greatly impair and destroy its energies; so that their abuse is rarely overcome. When the tone of the stomach, intestines, or nervous system generally, has been once injured by this mineral ... it could seldom be restored.
Quoted in Wooster Beach, A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Health (1848), 177.
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[On the future of Chemistry:] Chemistry is not the preservation hall of old jazz that it sometimes looks like. We cannot know what may happen tomorrow. Someone may oxidize mercury (II), francium (I), or radium (II). A mineral in Nova Scotia may contain an unsaturated quark per 1020 nucleons. (This is still 6000 per gram.) We may pick up an extraterrestrial edition of Chemical Abstracts. The universe may be a 4-dimensional soap bubble in an 11-dimensional space as some supersymmetry theorists argued in May of 1983. Who knows?
In George B. Kaufmann, 'Interview with Jannik Bjerrum and Christian Klixbull Jørgensen', Journal of Chemical Education (1985), 62, No. 11, 1005.
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[The] seminary spirit of minerals hath its proper wombs where it resides, and is like a Prince or Emperour, whose prescripts both Elements and matter must obey; and it is never idle, but always in action, producing and maintaining natural substances, untill they have fulfilled their destiny.
A Discourse of Natural Bathes, and Mineral Waters (1669), 104.
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[To] explain the phenomena of the mineral kingdom ... systems are usually reduced to two classes, according as they refer to the origin of terrestrial bodies to FIRE or to WATER; and ... their followers have of late been distinguished by the fanciful names of Vulcanists and Neptunists. To the former of these Dr HUTTON belongs much more than to the latter; though, as he employs the agency both of fire and water in his system, he cannot, in strict propriety, be arranged with either.
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802) collected in The Works of John Playfair (1822), Vol. 1, 21
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A casual glance at crystals may lead to the idea that they were pure sports of nature, but this is simply an elegant way of declaring one’s ignorance. With a thoughtful examination of them, we discover laws of arrangement. With the help of these, calculation portrays and links up the observed results. How variable and at the same time how precise and regular are these laws! How simple they are ordinarily, without losing anything of their significance! The theory which has served to develop these laws is based entirely on a fact, whose existence has hitherto been vaguely discerned rather than demonstrated. This fact is that in all minerals which belong to the same species, these little solids, which are the crystal elements and which I call their integrant molecules, have an invariable form, in which the faces lie in the direction of the natural fracture surfaces corresponding to the mechanical division of the crystals. Their angles and dimensions are derived from calculations combined with observation.
Traité de mineralogie … Publié par le conseil des mines (1801), Vol. 1, xiii-iv, trans. Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi.
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A mineralogist is the only living creature who belongs in the mineral kingdom.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 703.
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A rock or stone is not a subject that, of itself, may interest a philosopher to study; but, when he comes to see the necessity of those hard bodies, in the constitution of this earth, or for the permanency of the land on which we dwell, and when he finds that there are means wisely provided for the renovation of this necessary decaying part, as well as that of every other, he then, with pleasure, contemplates this manifestation of design, and thus connects the mineral system of this earth with that by which the heavenly bodies are made to move perpetually in their orbits.
Theory of the Earth, with Proofs and l1lustrations, Vol. 1 (1795), 276.
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After death, life reappears in a different form and with different laws. It is inscribed in the laws of the permanence of life on the surface of the earth and everything that has been a plant and an animal will be destroyed and transformed into a gaseous, volatile and mineral substance.
Quoted in Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur, trans. Elborg Forster (1994), 110.
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All the earths are burnt metals.
In 'Perpetual Forces', North American Review (1877), No. 125. Collected in Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Elliot Cabot (ed.), Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883), 60.
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All the work of the crystallographers serves only to demonstrate that there is only variety everywhere where they suppose uniformity … that in nature there is nothing absolute, nothing perfectly regular.
In Histoire Naturelle des Minéraux (1783-88), Vol. 3, 433.
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And having thus passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and geography, with a general compact of physics, they may descend in mathematics to the instrumental science of trigonometry, and from thence to fortification, architecture, engineering, or navigation. And in natural philosophy they may proceed leisurely from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, and living creatures, as far as anatomy. Then also in course might be read to them out of some not tedious writer the institution of physic. … To set forward all these proceedings in nature and mathematics, what hinders but that they may procure, as oft as shall be needful, the helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, apothecaries; and in other sciences, architects, engineers, mariners, anatomists.
In John Milton and Robert Fletcher (ed.), 'On Education', The Prose Works of John Milton: With an Introductory Review (1834), 100.
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And so many think incorrectly that everything was created by the Creator in the beginning as it is seen, that not only the mountains, valleys, and waters, but also various types of minerals occurred together with the rest of the world, and therefore it is said that it is unnecessary to investigate the reasons why they differ in their internal properties and their locations. Such considerations are very dangerous for the growth of all the sciences, and hence for natural knowledge of the Earth, particularly the art of mining, though it is very easy for those clever people to be philosophers, having learnt by heart the three words 'God so created' and to give them in reply in place of all reasons.
About the Layers of the Earth and other Works on Geology (1757), trans. A. P. Lapov (1949), 55.
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As mineralogy constitutes a part of chemistry, it is clear that this arrangement [of minerals] must derive its principles from chemistry. The most perfect mode of arrangement would certainly be to allow bodies to follow each other according to the order of their electro-chemical properties, from the most electro-negative, oxygen, to the most electro-positive, potassium; and to place every compound body according to its most electro-positive ingredient.
An Attempt to Establish a Pure Scientific System of Mineralogy (1814), trans. J. Black, 48.
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As plants convert the minerals into food for animals, so each man converts some raw material in nature to human use. The inventors of fire, electricity, magnetism, iron, lead, glass, linen, silk, cotton; the makers of tools; the inventor of decimal notation, the geometer, the engineer, the musician, severally make an easy way for all, through unknown and impossible confusions.
In 'Uses of Great Men', Representative Men (1850), 5-6.
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By blending water and minerals from below with sunlight and CO2 from above, green plants link the earth to the sky. We tend to believe that plants grow out of the soil, but in fact most of their substance comes from the air. The bulk of the cellulose and the other organic compounds produced through photosynthesis consists of heavy carbon and oxygen atoms, which plants take directly from the air in the form of CO2. Thus the weight of a wooden log comes almost entirely from the air. When we burn a log in a fireplace, oxygen and carbon combine once more into CO2, and in the light and heat of the fire we recover part of the solar energy that went into making the wood.
The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (1997), 178.
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By far the most important books for geology students were the quarries and clay pits, the cliffs and creek beds, the road and railroad cuts in woods and fields. Our words and letters were the imprints of plants and animals in stone, the minerals and crystals, and our vast, inexhaustible, incorruptible, and infallible library was nature itself.
In Hans Cloos, Ernst Cloos (ed.) and Curt Dietz (ed.), Conversation With the Earth (1953, 1959), 28, as translated by E.B. Garside from the original German edition, Gespräch mit der Erde (1947).
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Conservation is the foresighted utilization, preservation. And/or renewal of forest, waters, lands and minerals, for the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time.
In Breaking New Ground (1947, 1998), 505.
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Louis Pasteur quote: Every chemical substance, whether natural or artificial, falls into one of two major categories, according
Every chemical substance, whether natural or artificial, falls into one of two major categories, according to the spatial characteristic of its form. The distinction is between those substances that have a plane of symmetry and those that do not. The former belong to the mineral, the latter to the living world.
Pasteur Vallery-Radot (ed.), Oeuvres de Pasteur (1922-1939), Vol. I, 331. Quoted in Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur, trans. Elborg Forster (1994), 261.
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Fertile soil, level plains, easy passage across the mountains, coal, iron, and other metals imbedded in the rocks, and a stimulating climate, all shower their blessings upon man.
The Red Man's Continent: A Chronicle of Aboriginal America (1919), 87.
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Fossils are of four kinds, viz. saline, earthy, inflammable and metallic; hence arise four classes.
In Outlines of Mineralogy (1783), trans. William Withering, 12. [Before it was used for the petrified remains of organic forms, the word “fossil”—obsolete, as used here—refers to that which is “dug from the earth, preserved in the ground.” Hence, in the quote, Bergman is classifying minerals, which are the subject matter of his book. —Webmaster] Also collected in William Withering (the son, ed.), The Miscellaneous Tracts of the Late William Withering (1822), Vol. 2, 15.
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Geology has its peculiar difficulties, from which all other sciences are exempt. Questions in chemistry may be settled in the laboratory by experiment. Mathematical and philosophical questions may be discussed, while the materials for discussion are ready furnished by our own intellectual reflections. Plants, animals and minerals, may be arranged in the museum, and all questions relating to their intrinsic principles may be discussed with facility. But the relative positions, the shades of difference, the peculiar complexions, whether continuous or in subordinate beds, are subjects of enquiry in settling the character of rocks, which can be judged of while they are in situ only.
A Geological and Agricultural Survey of the District Adjoining the Erie Canal (1824), 8.
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Gold and iron at the present day, as in ancient times, are the rulers of the world; and the great events in the world of mineral art are not the discovery of new substances, but of new and rich localities of old ones.
Lecture (26 Npv 1851), to the London Society of Arts, 'The General Bearing of the Great Exhibition on the Progress of Art and Science', collected in Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851' (1852), 3.
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How greatly would the heroes and statesmen of antiquity have despised the labours of that man who devoted his life to investigate the properties of the magnet! Little could they anticipate that this humble mineral was destined to change the very form and condition of human society in every quarter of the globe.
In 'Observations on the Study of Mineralogy', The Philosophical Magazine and Journal (Jul 1819), 54, 46. Slightly edited and used by Joseph Henry in 'Introductory Lecture on Chemistry' (Jan-Mar 1832), The Papers of Joseph Henry, Vol. 1, 396.
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I am almost inclined to coin a word and call the appearance fluorescence, from fluor-spar, as the analogous term opalescence is derived from the name of a mineral.
Footnote in 'On The Change of Refrangibility of Light', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1852), 142, 479. From the mineral fluor-spar, Humphry Davy named fluorine. The mineral, now called fluorite (calcium fluorite), was named was by Georg Agricola in 1546. The German flusse, flow, was applied because it melts easily, and is now important as a flux.
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I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I became man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
'I Died as a Mineral', in Arthur John Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (1994), 241.
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I would rather have a mineral ill-classified and well-described, than well-classified and ill-described.
In On the External Characters of Minerals (1774), xxix, trans. Albert V. and Marguerite CaroaL
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I’m very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
In The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Act 1.
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In a French book recently translated by Sir William Moyer of Madras, the author [Joseph Chailley] says: “If India possessed a more fertile soil and were better endowed with mineral wealth, she would still languish in poverty if the natives continued to work with the same apathetic indifference as at present. Slackness is the worst curse of the country. At first sight, everybody seems to be taking an active part in some common toil; as a matter of fact, several persons are looking on at the labour of one. As has been cynically remarked, out of five people who seem to be working, one is doing nothing, one is resting, one is looking on and another is helping the previous three. Everyone endeavours to escape his full toll of toil.”
Quoting a disappointing foreign criticism of Indian culture in his Address to Mysore Civil Engineers Association (14 Nov 1910), collected in Speeches by Sir M. Visvesvaraya, KCIE. Dewan of Mysore. 1910-11 to 1916-17 (1917), 11. The book being quoted was M.J. Chailley (Member of the French Chamber of Deputies), L'Inde Britannique (1910), 104; as translated by Sir William Moyer as Administrative Problems Of British India (1910), 155. The translation of “slackness”, comes from original French sentence L’oisiveté est son piro mal. [Or “Idleness is its worst hindrance.” —Webmaster’s translation]
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In my own field, x-ray crystallography, we used to work out the structure of minerals by various dodges which we never bothered to write down, we just used them. Then Linus Pauling came along to the laboratory, saw what we were doing and wrote out what we now call Pauling's Rules. We had all been using Pauling's Rules for about three or four years before Pauling told us what the rules were.
In The Extension of Man (1972), 116.
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IODINE
It was Courtois discover'd Iodine
(In the commencement of this century),
Which, with its sisters, bromine and chlorine,
Enjoys a common parentage - the sea;
Although sometimes 'tis found, with other things,
In minerals and many saline springs.

But yet the quantity is so minute
In the great ocean, that a chemist might,
With sensibilities the most acute,
Have never brought this element to light,
Had he not thought it were as well to try
Where ocean's treasures concentrated lie.

And Courtois found that several plants marine,
Sponges, et cetera, exercise the art
Of drawing from the sea its iodine
In quantities sufficient to impart
Its properties; and he devised a plan
Of bringing it before us - clever man!
Anonymous
Discursive Chemical Notes in Rhyme (1876) by the Author of the Chemical Review, a B.
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It is as true now, as it was in the days when Werner first drew his far-reaching inferences before his charmed listeners, that on the characteristic phenomena and varying distribution of the grand mineral masses of the rock-formations, almost all that concerns the relative habitability of a land depends.
In 'The Relations of Geology', Scottish Geographical Magazine (Aug 1902), 19, No. 8, 409.
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It is to geometry that we owe in some sort the source of this discovery [of beryllium]; it is that [science] that furnished the first idea of it, and we may say that without it the knowledge of this new earth would not have been acquired for a long time, since according to the analysis of the emerald by M. Klaproth and that of the beryl by M. Bindheim one would not have thought it possible to recommence this work without the strong analogies or even almost perfect identity that Citizen Haüy found for the geometrical properties between these two stony fossils.
Haüy used the geometry of cleavage to reveal the underlying crystal structure, and thus found the emeral and beryl were geometrically identical. In May Elvira Weeks, The Discovery of the Elements (1934), 153, citing Mellor, Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry (1923), 204-7.
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It makes me feel both proud and rather humble that it shall be called Lonsdaleite. Certainly the name seems appropriate since the mineral only occurs in very small quantities (perhaps rare would be too flattering) and it is generally rather mixed up!
From Letter to Clifford Frondel, who had named a meteoritic form of diamond after Lonsdale (a petite person). As quoted in Maureen M. Julian, 'Women in Crystallography', in G. Kass-Simon and P. Farnes (eds.), Women of Science: Righting the Record (1990), 356.
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Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the elements, of using the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction.
From 'History', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903), 34.
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Man is merely a frequent effect, a monstrosity is a rare one, but both are equally natural, equally inevitable, equally part of the universal and general order. And what is strange about that? All creatures are involved in the life of all others, consequently every species... all nature is in a perpetual state of flux. Every animal is more or less a human being, every mineral more or less a plant, every plant more or less an animal... There is nothing clearly defined in nature.
D'Alembert's Dream (1769), in Rameau's Nephew and D' Alembert's Dream, trans. Leonard Tancock (Penguin edition 1966), 181.
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Meanwhile I flatter myself with so much success, that: students... will not be so easily mistaken in the subjects of the mineral kingdom, as has happened with me and others in following former systems; and I also hope to obtain some protectors against those who are so possessed with the figuromania, and so addicted to the surface of things, that they are shocked at the boldness of calling a marble a limestone, and of placing the Porphyry amongst the Saxa.
An Essay Towards a System of Mineralogy (1770), trans. G. Von Engestrom, xxi.
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Mineral substances vary greatly in color, transparency, luster, brilliance, odor, taste, and other properties which are shown by their strength and weakness, shape, and form. They do not have the variety of origins that we find not only in living matter but also in original matter. Moreover they have not been classified like the latter on the basis of the place where they pass their life since mineral substances lack life and with rare exceptions are found only within the earth. They do not have the differences in characters and actions which nature has given to living things alone. Great differences are not the essential features of minerals as they are of living and original matter.
De Natura Fossilium (1546), trans. M. C. and J. A. Bandy (1955), 1.
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My father, the practicing physician, … was a passionate collector of natural objects (amber, shells, minerals, beetles, etc.) and a great friend of the natural sciences. … To my energetic and intellectually vigorous mother I owe an infinite debt.
As quoted in Paul Forman and Armin Hermann, 'Sommerfeld, Arnold (Johannes Wilhelm)', Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1975), Vol. 12, 525. Cited from 'Autobiographische Skizze', Gesammelte Schriften, Vol 4, 673–682.
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Natural bodies are divided into three kingdoms of nature: viz. the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Minerals grow, Plants grow and live, Animals grow, live, and have feeling.
'Observations on the Three Kingdoms of Nature', Nos 14-15. Systema Naturae (1735). As quoted (translated) in Étienne Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality (2009), 42-43.
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One can descend by imperceptible degree from the most perfect creature to the most shapeless matter, from the best-organised animal to the roughest mineral.
'Premier Discours: De la Manière d'Étudier et de Traiter l'Histoire naturelle'. In Oeuvres Complètes (1774-79), Vol. I, 17.
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Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness.
In Lorenz Oken, trans. by Alfred Tulk, Elements of Physiophilosophy (1847), 1.
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Populations of bacteria live in the spumes of volcanic thermal vents on the ocean floor, multiplying in water above the boiling point. And far beneath Earth’s surface, to a depth of 2 miles (3.2 km) or more, dwell the SLIMES (subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems), unique assemblages of bacteria and fungi that occupy pores in the interlocking mineral grains of igneous rock and derive their energy from inorganic chemicals. The SLIMES are independent of the world above, so even if all of it were burned to a cinder, they would carry on and, given enough time, probably evolve new life-forms able to re-enter the world of air and sunlight.
In 'Vanishing Before Our Eyes', Time (26 Apr 2000).
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RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil’s Dictionary,  273.
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Science progresses by a series of combinations in which chance plays not the least role. Its life is rough and resembles that of minerals which grow by juxtaposition [accretion]. This applies not only to science such as it emerges [results] from the work of a series of scientists, but also to the particular research of each one of them. In vain would analysts dissimulate: (however abstract it may be, analysis is no more our power than that of others); they do not deduce, they combine, they compare: (it must be sought out, sounded out, solicited.) When they arrive at the truth it is by cannoning from one side to another that they come across it.
English translation from manuscript, in Évariste Galois and Peter M. Neumann, 'Dossier 12: On the progress of pure analysis', The Mathematical Writings of Évariste Galois (2011), 263. A transcription of the original French is on page 262. In the following quote from that page, indicated deletions are omitted, and Webmaster uses parentheses to enclose indications of insertions above the original written line. “La science progresse par une série de combinaisons où le hazard ne joue pas le moindre rôle; sa vie est brute et ressemble à celle des minéraux qui croissent par juxtà position. Cela s’applique non seulement à la science telle qu’elle résulte des travaux d’une série de savants, mais aussi aux recherches particulières à chacun d’eux. En vain les analystes voudraient-ils se le dissimuler: (toute immatérielle qu’elle wst analyse n’est pas pas plus en notre pouvoir que des autres); ils ne déduisent pas, ils combinent, ils comparent: (il faut l’epier, la sonder, la solliciter) quand ils arrivent à la vérité, c’est en heurtant de côté et d’autre qu’il y sont tombés.” Webmaster corrected from typo “put” to “but” in the English text.
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That Mettals, Small Stones, Rocky-Stones, Sulphurs, Salts, and so the whole rank of Minerals, do find their Seeds in the Matrix or Womb of the Waters, which contain the Reasons, Gifts, Knowledges, Progresses, Appointments, Offices, and Durations of the same.
Oriatrike: Or, Physick Refined, trans. John Chandler (1662), 693.
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The essence of the simplest mineral phenomenon is as completely unknown to chemists and physicists today as is the essence of intellectual phenomenon to physiologists.
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The fuel in the earth will be exhausted in a thousand or more years, and its mineral wealth, but man will find substitutes for these in the winds, the waves, the sun's heat, and so forth. (1916)
From Under the Apple-Trees (1916), 308.
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The instinct for collecting, which began as in other animals as an adaptive property, could always in man spread beyond reason; it could become a hoarding mania. But in its normal form it provides a means of livelihood at the hunting and collecting stage of human evolution. It is then attached to a variety of rational aptitudes, above all in observing, classifying, and naming plants, animals and minerals, skills diversely displayed by primitive peoples. These skills with an instinctive beginning were the foundation of most of the civilised arts and sciences. Attached to other skills in advanced societies they promote the formation of museums and libraries; detached, they lead to acquisition and classification by eccentric individuals, often without any purpose or value at all.
As quoted in Richard Fifield, 'Cytologist Supreme', New Scientist (16 Apr 1981), 90, No. 1249, 179; citing C.D. Darlington, The Little Universe of Man (1978).
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The living world is a unique and spectacular marvel. Billions of individuals, and millions of kinds of plants and animals …. Working together to benefit from the energy of the sun and the minerals of the earth. Leading lives that interlock in such a way that they sustain each other. We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine. And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. Yet the way we humans live on Earth now is sending biodiversity into a decline.
From introductory narration to Netflix TV program, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future (4 Oct 2020).
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The mineral kingdom consists of the fossil substances found in the earth. These are either entirely destitute of organic structure, or, having once possessed it, possess it no longer: such are the petrefactions.
In Outlines of Mineralogy (1783), trans. William Withering, 5. [Before it was specifically used for the petrified remains of organic forms, the word “fossil”—obsolete, as used here—refers to that which is “dug from the earth, preserved in the ground.” —Webmaster] Also collected in William Withering (the son, ed.), The Miscellaneous Tracts of the Late William Withering (1822), Vol. 2, 9.
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The mortality of those who dig minerals is very great, and women who marry men of this sort marry again and again. According to Agricola, at the mines in the Carpathian mountains, women have been known to marry seven times.
Diseases of Workers, translated by W. C. Wright, preface.
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The sciences of Natural History and Botany require so much time to be devoted to them that, however pleasing, they may be justly considered as improper objects for the man of business to pursue scientifically, so as to enter into the exact arrangement and classification of the different bodies of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. But reading and personal observation will supply him with ample matter for reflection and admiration.
'On the Advantages of Literature and Philosophy in general and especially on the Consistency of Literary and Philosophical with Commercial Pursuits' (Read 3 Oct 1781). As quoted in Robert Angus Smith, A Centenary of Science in Manchester (1883), 79.
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The sheet of paper contains all the information about the cosmos … The trees are not enough to make the sheet of paper. The sunshine nourishes the trees; the clouds water the trees; the soil, the minerals … They are one with the paper.
In No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life (2003), 81-82. [The air, the atmosphere, are also part of the paper. —Webmaster]
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The star spectra present such varieties that it is difficult to point out any mode of classification. For the present, I divide them into three groups: first, those having many lines and bands and most nearly resembling the sun viz., Capella, β Geminorum, α Orionis, Aldeberan, γ Leonis, Arcturus, and β Pegasi. These are all reddish or golden stars. The second group, of which Sirius is the type, presents spectra wholly unlike that of the sun, and are white stars. The third group, comprising α Virginis, Rigel &c., are also white stars, but show no lines; perhaps they contain no mineral substance or are incandescent without flame.
L.M. Rutherfurd, 'Astronomical Observations with the Spectroscope' (4 Dec 1862), American Journal of Science and Arts (May 1863), 2nd Series, 35, No. 103, 77. His obituarist, Johns K. Rees, wrote (1892) “This paper was the first published work on star spectra.”
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The volume now in press will make the new gospel of geology and mineralogy, and if I live to complete my mineralogical text-book, I shall do for the mineral what Darwin did for the organic world.
Letter to a friend (1886), as quoted in Paper read before the American Philosophical Society (1 Apr 1898) by James Douglas, printed as A Memoir of Thomas Sterry Hunt (1898), 12.
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There are three reasons why, quite apart from scientific considerations, mankind needs to travel in space. The first reason is garbage disposal; we need to transfer industrial processes into space so that the earth may remain a green and pleasant place for our grandchildren to live in. The second reason is to escape material impoverishment; the resources of this planet are finite, and we shall not forgo forever the abundance of solar energy and minerals and living space that are spread out all around us. The third reason is our spiritual need for an open frontier. The ultimate purpose of space travel is to bring to humanity, not only scientific discoveries and an occasional spectacular show on television, but a real expansion of our spirit.
In Disturbing the Universe (1979).
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There is no generation from an egg in the Mineral Kingdom. Hence no vascular circulation of the humours as in the remaining Natural Kingdoms.
Systema Naturae (1735), trans. M. S. J. Engel-Ledeboer and H. Engel (1964), 20.
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There is, I think, no more wonderful and illuminating spectacle than that of an osmotic growth,—a crude lump of brute inanimate matter germinating before our very eyes, putting forth bud and stem and root and branch and leaf and fruit, with no stimulus from germ or seed, without even the presence of organic matter. For these mineral growths are not mere crystallizations as many suppose … They imitate the forms, the colour, the texture, and even the microscopical structure of organic growth so closely as to deceive the very elect.
In the 'Translator’s Preface' of his translation of Stéphane Leduc, The Mechanism of Life (1911), vii-viii. Butcher is drawing attention to the remarkable discussion of “Organic Growth” in Leduc’s book. Must-see illustrations of various inorganic growths are shown on the M.I.T. web page Osmotic Morphogenesis. Also note that “to deceive the very elect” is a Biblical reference, where the “elect” are the chosen ones faithful to their divine call.See, for example, Matthew 24:24.
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There’s a new science out called orthomolecular medicine. You correct the chemical imbalance with amino acids and vitamins and minerals that are naturally in the body.
…...
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This Academy [at Lagado] is not an entire single Building, but a Continuation of several Houses on both Sides of a Street; which growing waste, was purchased and applied to that Use.
I was received very kindly by the Warden, and went for many Days to the Academy. Every Room hath in it ' one or more Projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer than five Hundred Rooms.
The first Man I saw was of a meagre Aspect, with sooty Hands and Face, his Hair and Beard long, ragged and singed in several Places. His Clothes, Shirt, and Skin were all of the same Colour. He had been Eight Years upon a Project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into Vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the Air in raw inclement Summers. He told me, he did not doubt in Eight Years more, that he should be able to supply the Governor's Gardens with Sunshine at a reasonable Rate; but he complained that his Stock was low, and interested me to give him something as an Encouragement to Ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear Season for Cucumbers. I made him a small Present, for my Lord had furnished me with Money on purpose, because he knew their Practice of begging from all who go to see them.
I saw another at work to calcine Ice into Gunpowder; who likewise shewed me a Treatise he had written concerning the Malleability of Fire, which he intended to publish.
There was a most ingenious Architect who had contrived a new Method for building Houses, by beginning at the Roof, and working downwards to the Foundation; which he justified to me by the life Practice of those two prudent Insects the Bee and the Spider.
In another Apartment I was highly pleased with a Projector, who had found a device of plowing the Ground with Hogs, to save the Charges of Plows, Cattle, and Labour. The Method is this: In an Acre of Ground you bury at six Inches Distance, and eight deep, a quantity of Acorns, Dates, Chestnuts, and other Masts or Vegetables whereof these Animals are fondest; then you drive six Hundred or more of them into the Field, where in a few Days they will root up the whole Ground in search of their Food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their Dung. It is true, upon Experiment they found the Charge and Trouble very great, and they had little or no Crop. However, it is not doubted that this Invention may be capable of great Improvement.
I had hitherto seen only one Side of the Academy, the other being appropriated to the Advancers of speculative Learning.
Some were condensing Air into a dry tangible Substance, by extracting the Nitre, and letting the acqueous or fluid Particles percolate: Others softening Marble for Pillows and Pin-cushions. Another was, by a certain Composition of Gums, Minerals, and Vegetables outwardly applied, to prevent the Growth of Wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped in a reasonable Time to propagate the Breed of naked Sheep all over the Kingdom.
Gulliver's Travels (1726, Penguin ed. 1967), Part III, Chap. 5, 223.
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To learn… the ordinary arrangement of the different strata of minerals in the earth, to know from their habitual colocations and proximities, where we find one mineral; whether another, for which we are seeking, may be expected to be in its neighborhood, is useful.
In The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854), Vol. 7, 443.
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To trace the series of these revolutions, to explain their causes, and thus to connect together all the indications of change that are found in the mineral kingdom, is the proper object of a THEORY OF THE EARTH.
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), 2.
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We maintain that there are two exhalations, one vaporous the other smoky, and these correspond to two kinds of bodies that originate in the earth, things quarried and things mined. The heat of the dry exhalation is the cause of all things quarried. Such are the kinds of stones that cannot be melted, and realgar, and ochre, and ruddle, and sulphur, and the other things of that kind, most things quarried being either coloured lye or, like cinnabar, a stone compounded of it. The vaporous exhalation is the cause of all things mined—things which are either fusible or malleable such as iron, copper, gold.
Aristotle
Meteorology, 378a, 19-28. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. I, 607.
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When I was a little over eight years old,… I was sent to a day-school…. [By this time] my taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), 'Autobiography', The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887, 1896), Vol. 1, 26.
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When I was examining and arranging some minerals in the British Museum, I observed a small specimen of a dark colored substance, which attracted my attention, on account of some resemblance which it had with the Siberian chromate of iron, on which I that time was making experiments. Upon referring to Sir Hans Sloane’s catalog, I found that this specimen was only described as a very heavy black stone with golden streaks, which proved to be yellow mica, and it appeared that it had been sent…to Sloane by Mr, Winthrop, of Massachusetts.
Opening paragraph from Paper (26 Nov 1801) read to the Royal Society, printed in 'Analysis of a Mineral Substance From North America, Containing a Metal Hitherto Unknown', Philosophical Transactions (1802), 92, 49.
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Why Become Extinct? Authors with varying competence have suggested that dinosaurs disappeared because the climate deteriorated (became suddenly or slowly too hot or cold or dry or wet), or that the diet did (with too much food or not enough of such substances as fern oil; from poisons in water or plants or ingested minerals; by bankruptcy of calcium or other necessary elements). Other writers have put the blame on disease, parasites, wars, anatomical or metabolic disorders (slipped vertebral discs, malfunction or imbalance of hormone and endocrine systems, dwindling brain and consequent stupidity, heat sterilization, effects of being warm-blooded in the Mesozoic world), racial old age, evolutionary drift into senescent overspecialization, changes in the pressure or composition of the atmosphere, poison gases, volcanic dust, excessive oxygen from plants, meteorites, comets, gene pool drainage by little mammalian egg-eaters, overkill capacity by predators, fluctuation of gravitational constants, development of psychotic suicidal factors, entropy, cosmic radiation, shift of Earth’s rotational poles, floods, continental drift, extraction of the moon from the Pacific Basin, draining of swamp and lake environments, sunspots, God’s will, mountain building, raids by little green hunters in flying saucers, lack of standing room in Noah’s Ark, and palaeoweltschmerz.
'Riddles of the Terrible Lizards', American Scientist (1964) 52, 231.
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Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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