Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 91. (Budapest 1999)

Kázmér, M. ; Papp, G.: Minerals from the Carpathians in an eighteenth-century British collection

Some of his comments on specimens from outside of the Carpathians has to be quoted here because of their reference to Carpathian minerals. He mentioned that the "red transparent Spaad" (= calcite) and "the white Spaad or common Lime, where Spaad is not to be got fare used] as an Absorbent of Sulphurs, in running the Silver and Copper-Ores, all over Germany and Hungary, at the great Smelting Works." (Part I, p. 14). Another remark of WEBER to a loadstone specimen states that "they sometimes find the Magnet in the Veins along with iron, in Saxony; and very commonly in the Upper Hungary. They smelt and run it down with the Iron-Ore" (Part I, p. 47). Probably WEBER is the source of the remark that a hair-like native silver, which "is found in small Quantities among the Spar of the Veins" at Freiberg in Saxony is "found in the like manner as Schemnitz in Hungary" (Part I, p. 31). According to another anonymous comment on an unspecified rich silver mineral from the Upper Palatinate (Germany) "there is also of this sort of Ore got at Schemnitz". THE CARPATHIAN SPECIMENS AND LOCALITIES* The specimens Collecting — as opposed to sampling - is aimed at an individual object bearing interest for the collector. The Carpathians were a distant region for the average gatherer of the turn of the 17th-18th centuries; we suppose, that by making their choice among the minerals available in their time reflects more than aesthetical preferences. Chance may have been a factor, of course, in determining what specimens found their ways into the Woodwardian Collection, although we suppose that the doctor did not include each and every specimen received. What were the interesting specimens derived from Hungary? We attempted to classify the specimens by their essentiell features. Six classes are recognised: precipitations, alchemy-related minerals, ores of noble metals, ores of base metals, pyrites s.l., and curiosities (Table 1). The "scholarly character" of the collection is obvious. Hungarian mines supplied lots of beautiful minerals: "there are also found in these [Schemnitz] Mines. Crystals, Amethysts, and Amethystine mixtures in the clefts of the Rocks, and sometimes nigh or joyned to the Ore" (BROWN 1673), but no such specimens are found in the collection, and only three items can be regarded as "curious specimens", but their curiosity is of rather scientific character. Precipitations were of scientific interest obviously as products of contemporaneous mineral formation. At least four specimens from them were presented by BROWN (q.v.), who systematically visited thermal springs and outflows of mine-waters and collected their products, "being desirous to see what alterations divers of those Mineral-waters in that Country, would make upon Metals..." (BROWN 1673). As the quotation already indicates the last kind of precipitations, precipitated or cement copper, can also be grouped with alchemy-related materials, as many contemporary alchemist regarded this process Only a general survey of the specimens and localities is given here. The catalogue entries and specific remarks to the specimens and localities are found in the Appendix.