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PREFACE. Wwes it was proposed to the Editors to undertake the pre paration of a new edition of the elementary treatise on Mine ralogy hy the late W. Phillips, their first impression was to revise with care the third edition of the work, and to make such additions to it as later discoveries might render necessary. But after an attentive perusal of only a small portion of the volume, they found, that if the form of the third edition was to be retained, the corrections, alterations and additions would he so numerous as to render the labour of revision greater than would be occasioned by the entire recomposition of the whole treatise. Being aware also of the great advance since 1823 in the knowledge of the physical properties of minerals, as well as of their chemical constitutions ; and recollecting the important generalizations introduced into mineralogy since that time, it appeared to the Editors that the work must both in form and substance be new. It has accordingly been entirely recon structed, and the latest observations and discoveries, as far as the Editors are aware, have been introduced. The peculiar character of the third edition of the work of W. Phillips, and which rendered it so generally acceptable to all who were engaged in mineralogical pursuits was, its copious illustrations of crystalline forms, and the extensive lists of measured angles, which lists have been greatly extended in this edition. The methods of representing crystals in this volume differ from those employed hy the late W. Phillips; but