gems, jade, Fischer-Book

A systematic mineralogical handbook by the German physician and chemist Rudolf Augustin Vogel, intended to provide a practical classification and description of minerals. The work organizes mineral substances according to their observable and chemical characteristics and discusses their identification, properties and uses within the framework of mid-eighteenth-century mineralogy. Precious stones are treated as part of the mineral kingdom, making the book useful for tracing contemporary classification and terminology of gemstones before the development of modern mineralogical systems.