This article presents a detailed history and exegesis of the 1798 paper of Charles Greville and Jacques-Louis Count de Bournon, “On the Corundum Stone from Asia.” This was the first published argument to establish that the mineral corundum was related to, or identical with, the ruby and the sapphire. It was also the first time that the science of crystallography, recently developed in France, was publically introduced to a British scientific audience. René Just Haüy’s theory of the three-dimensional structure of minerals proposed a new kind of extension of chemistry into the solid state. The story of corundum illustrates the new and sophisticated mineralogy that had emerged in the late eighteenth century and how an increasingly global natural history relied upon extended networks of trade and empire. It shows also how mineralogical debates had begun to move beyond the private and restricted milieux of mining schools and wealthy collectors and into more public scientific fora.

中文翻译：

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刚玉石和晶体化学

本文详细介绍了 Charles Greville 和 Jacques-Louis Count de Bournon 1798 年发表的论文“关于亚洲的刚玉石”的历史和解释。这是第一个发表的论点，确定矿物刚玉与红宝石和蓝宝石有关或相同。这也是最近在法国发展起来的晶体学科学第一次被公开介绍给英国的科学观众。René Just Haüy 的矿物三维结构理论提出了化学向固态的新延伸。刚玉的故事说明了 18 世纪后期出现的新的复杂矿物学，以及日益全球化的自然历史如何依赖于扩展的贸易和帝国网络。