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IV.—On Mineral growth, at ordinary temperatures, and under ordinary conditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

Extract

“Plants live, and grow ; Animals live, grow, and move; Minerals, neither live, grow, nor move.”

For so long a time, has this been an article of almost universal belief, that any nonconformity therewith, is looked upon with more or less of grave suspicion.

In what follows, it is proposed to show that there is a rather more natural order in which the aphorism may appropriately run; namely :—

Minerals grow, Plants live and grow, Animals live, grow, and move at will. “The three kingdoms of nature,” as they are not at all inconveniently called, exist in close relationship; so very close, indeed, that some naturalists think they are not really apart from each other.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1877

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References

page 159 note * Job, xxvi, 14.

page 159 note † Job, xi, 6.

page 161 note * Geological Observer.

page 161 note † Percy's Metallurgy, Vol. 1., p. 349.

page 162 note * Chemical News, Feb. 16, 1877.

page 162 note ‡ Ibid. March 23, 1877.

page 163 note * May 6. I received from Mr. Hutchings this morning, a kindly note on Moss-Copper, and Moss-Silver, resulting from experiments at a low degree of heat. The object, however, which I have at heart, is a proof that metallic-growth also takes place at ordinary temperatures, and, probably, under ordinary conditions.

page 165 note * Geological Observer, p. 768.

page 166 note * The specimens referred to were exhibited by the author in illustration of his paper.

page 183 note * “Notes on a Merionethshire gold quartz crystal, and some sirream gold found in the river Mawddach, by T. A. Readwin, F.G.S. (See notes and abstracts of sections, p. 84.