An Elementary Introduction to the Knowledge of Mineralogy: Including Some Account of Mineral Elements and Constituents

William Phillips (1773-1828) was a printer and geologist who became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1827. A founder of the London Askesian Society, he was also an active member of the British Mineralogical Society. In 1807 he and twelve others founded the Geological Society of London, and he was described by the Society’s historian as ‘the most distinguished, as a geologist, of the original founders’. His pioneering 1818 digest of British geology, Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, was the most ambitious and influential work of its kind. Phillips gave free lectures to young people in his village in 1814, and these were published the following year. This work followed in 1816, and both went on to become standard textbooks. Aimed at students, it collects observations of a wide range of minerals’ characteristics and occurrence, incorporating crystallographic work using the new reflecting goniometer.