fortuitously have settled into any of those under which it actually appears. Now, on this hypothesis, we ought to find all kinds of substances presented occasionally under an infinite number of external forms, and combined in endless varieties of indefinite proportions; but observation has shown that crystalline mineral bodies occur under a fixed and limited number of external forms called secondary, and that these are constructed on a series of more simple primary forms, which are demonstrable by cleavage and mechanical division, without chemical analysis: the integrant molecules[1] of these primary forms of crystals are usually compound bodies, made up of an ulterior series of constituent molecules, i. e. molecules of the first substances obtained by chemical analysis; and these in many cases are also compound bodies, made up of the elementary molecules, or final indivisible atoms,[2] of which the ultimate particles of matter are probably composed.[3]
- ↑ Ce que j'ai dit de la forme deviendra encore plus evident, si, en pénétrant dans le mecanisme intime de la structure, on conçoit tous ces cristaux comme des assemblages de molecules integrates parfaitement semblables par leurs formes, et subordonnées, à un arrangement régulier. Ainsi, au lieu qu'une étude superficielle des cristaux n'y laissait voir que des singularités de la nature, une étude approfondie nous conduit à cette conséquence que le même Dieu dont ls puissance et la sagesse ont soumis la course des astres à des lois qui ne se démentent jamais, en a aussi établi auxquelles ont obéi avec la méme fidélité les molécules qui se sont réunies pour donner naissance aux corps cachés dans les retraites du globe que nous habitons. Haüy. Tlsbleau comparatif des Résultats de la Cristallographie et de l'Analyse Chimique. P. xvii.
- ↑ "We seem to be justified in concluding, that a limit is to be assigned to the divisibility of matter, and consequently that we must suppose the existence of certain ultimate particles, stamped, as Newton conjectured, in the beginning of time by the hands of the Almighty with permanent characters, and retaining the exact size and figure, no less than the other more subtle qualities and relations which were given to them at the first moment of their creation.
"The particles of the several substances existing in nature may thus deserve to be regarded as the alphabet, composing the great volume which records the wisdom and goodness of the Creator."
Daubeny's Atomic Theory, p. 107.
- ↑ We may once for all illustrate the combinations of exact and methodical arrangements under which the ordinary crystalline forms of
