Abstract
IN a preliminary chapter of this book the student is taught how to prepare for himself, with due regard to economy of purse, a set of models to be used in connection with the various lessons. In the course of the following 72 pages the constancy of the angles of crystals, symmetry, notation, drawing of crystal forms and spherical projection, are in turn explained. The physical properties of crystals are then briefly touched upon, and in a last lesson mero-symmetry is discussed. The appendix (55 pages) deals with a subject entirely different from Crystallography, namely Determinative Mineralogy, and is made up almost wholly of tables drawn up after the manner of those of Dr. Weisbach. The book contains numerous woodcuts in the text, and is furnished with four plates, two of them consisting of diagrams to be pasted on cardboard and used in the construction of the aforementioned models. To each lesson is appended a set of useful questions relating to the subject which has been discussed. Some of the statements are wanting in accuracy: for instance, on page 55 the student is told that “the symbols of all planes in a zone have two of their indices always in a constant ratio,” which is untrue; and at times the language is wanting in neatness and precision: still, if the student is in the hands of a careful teacher, he will be able to get much help from the book, and is not likely to be led astray.
Crystallography for Beginners, with an Appendix on the use of the Blowpipe and the Determination of Common Minerals (after the method of Dr. Albin Weisbach).
By C. J. Woodward Pp. 164. (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., Ltd., 1896.)
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Crystallography for Beginners, with an Appendix on the use of the Blowpipe and the Determination of Common Minerals (after the method of Dr Albin Weisbach). Nature 54, 522 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054522a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054522a0