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I SHALL employ a few pages in giving a very fhort hiftorieal account of the authors who have treated of, * mineralogy, with the view of enabling the reader to appreciate more fully the merits of the Wernerian fyftern, on which the prefent work is founded. T he mineralogical writings of Pliny, Theophraftus; and Diofcorides, have made us acquainted with the luxury of the Romans and Grecians, and their fine 'works of art; but they contain nothing of fyftem, and very little of tolerable defcription. The firft: . fyft e matic mineralogift was undoubtedly the cele brated Saxon miner George Agricola. He was alio the firft who inveftigated the external characters of minerals, determined them with any degree of accu racy, and ufed them with judgment in the defcrip- fyft em he divides minerals into t o e which are compofed of homogeneous parts, and t ofe compofed of heterogeneous parts. The homo- geneous, or fimple minerals, he fubdivides into four • elafles, w'hich are entitled, i. Terra, 2. Succus'con- a cretus,