Abstract
My text for today is taken from the book of Kelvin, an address by Bowen, and a few hopefully well-concealed bits plagiarized from my colleagues. I have been tempted to talk about a variety of things including the beauty of minerals and rocks, thus the title. Several of my friends have expressed displeasure with the thought of having to listen to me give a “scientific” address, and I understand their feeling and envy their frankness. My subject could have been, “Man was not meant to make microcline”, but I have talked around that one before. A more modern theme would be “The new global mineralogy”, and why not try that? A few words might also be said about some educational matters in the areas of our speciality, but discussions on education rarely seems to get anywhere. When I was a young man, papers that sounded like what I propose to talk about really put me off!.
