here - Geological Curators Group

ecording the details of developmentprocesses as an essential part of specimendocumentation. Surely it is irresponsible togive tacit approval to techniques which mayboth destroy the scientific value of themineral specimen, and be very hazardous to anoften ill-equipped amateur collector.Still, perhaps this will not be a problem formost of us. If the advice given in theEditorial of no.3 is followed, our provincialand university museums are unlikely toreceive the benefits of new mineraldiscoveries, or perhaps entire collections.They are attacked for their lack of aconservation tradition, for theirvulnerability to the whims of directors andheads of departments, and for their all toohuman curators who cannot be trusted to holdand safely divulge the contents of mineralsite records. Such records are, according tothe editor, already held, and should only beheld by the Nature Conservancy Council.This attack (by a staff member of awell-respected national museum) should not goundefended. A 'letters to the Editor' columnwhere inter alia such a defence could bemounted, would be a useful addition to avaluable and long overdue publication.The Journal of the Russell Society isavailable free of charge to Society members,or for a non-member subscription of E5 perannum from: Dr R.J. King (Editor), NationalMuseum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF13NP. Prices of back issues available onrequest.The Mineralogical Record is published by:Mineralogical Record Inc., 7413 N. MowryPlace, Tucson, Arizona 85741, USA. Price $27per annum (6 issues).Monica T. PriceMineral CollectionsUniversity MuseumOxford OX1 3PR16 May 1986Impey, 0. and MacGregor, A. (eds.). 1985.This stately and impressive volume containsthirty-three chapters, all except one beingbased on papers presented to a symposium heldat the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in July1983. The symposium was part of thecelebrations which marked the tercentenary ofthe opening of the Ashmolean Museum to thepublic in May 1683.Chapters in the book, like the papers in thesymposium are arranged in three groups.Chs.1-20 deal with individual collections orwith groups of collections in the principalcities of Europe; Chs. 21-26 consider thedifferent categories of material which wereincluded in the collections such as classicalantiquities, scientific equipment, shells andskins; and Chs. 27-33 deal geographicallywith the materials from Africa, China, Indiaand other exotic localities which found theirway to Europe. The only major omission fromthe volume, which is noted in the Preface, isthat there is no essay on any of the earlycollections in France.There is much to interest geological curatorsin this volume. Most of the collectionsdescribed in the first twenty chapterscontained some geological materials amongtheir natural wonders. A number of them arealready familiar to geologists throughreferences to their great contemporarycatalogues in the classic histories ofZittel, Adams and Geikie. Writers in thisvolume give us a new and refreshingly broadperspective on the collections ofAldrovandus, the Vatican, Olaus Worm andothers, by considering each collection as awhole and in its historical and geographicalcontext. However, many of the geologicalreferences are quite new, at least to me.Ch.12, on the museum of the HessianLandgraves in ICassel, for example, gives afascinating account of a collection with animportant geological element in its lateryears. Any mineral curator who is thinkingof mounting a new display should read Ch.10,on the Munich Cabinet, where stones, mineralsand corals were set out in elaborate'arrangements' under tall glass domes.In the one purely geological chapter, HughTorrens gives a pioneering account of earlycollecting in the field of geology. Hebegins his story with Georgius Agricola'sNatura Fossilium (15461, and shows howgeological collections were established andalso made use of in Germany, France, Italy,and Switzerland by the year 1600. Geologicalcollecting in Britain did not get under wayuntil about 1650, but thereafter progress wasrapid, and a number of 17th century museumsare described. Tucked in at the end of thepaper are some comments on the development ofcuratorial techniques which are mostwelcome. The most telling comment on earlycuratorial techniques (or lack of them) comesin Michael Hunter's paper on the early RoyalSociety collections. He quotes from thejournal of Von Uffenbach, a Dutchmantravelling in England in 1710, on the subjectof James Petiver's collection: 'Everythinghe had was kept in true English fashion inprodigious confusion in one wretched cabinetand in boxes.' Would that things weredifferent today! It is a pity that Hugh wasnot given a little more space to develop histhemes, but I expect all thirty-three authorscould have written more with ease.Quite apart from its actual geologicalcontent, the volume is full of historicalpoints which are of interest and relevance toanyone working in museums today. Ch.6, forinstance, touches on the various purposesbehind early collections; Ch.8 on theemergence of publicly owned museums, Ch.14 onthe social aspects of collections, and Ch.15on the influence of political disturbance onmuseums. To counteract Von Uffenbach's'English fashion', there is the account of