Carpathian minerals in the eighteenth-century Woodwardian Collection in Cambridge.

Kázmér, Miklós (1998) Carpathian minerals in the eighteenth-century Woodwardian Collection in Cambridge. Journal of the History of Collections, 10 (2). pp. 159-168.

PDF Kazmer_1998_Woodwardian_Coll_JHisColl.pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (788kB)

Abstract

The Woodwardian collection of the Sedgwick Museum, University of Cambridge is probably the oldest earth science collection preserved intact in the world. Among its c. 9,4oo specimens (1,574 of which are foreign) it holds seventy-five specimens of minerals, fossils and other objects of curiosity derived from the Carpathians. Local collectors and travellers supplied John Woodward (1665-1728), the London physician and naturalist, with the specimens, which he carefully stored, registered in a catalogue and used as evidence in his natural history studies. Although scattered in origin, the Carpathian specimens possibly constitute the oldest surviving mineral collection of the region, originating in the mining districts of Lower Hungary (now Slovakia), in Transylvania (now Romania), and in Hungary proper. The collectors and the localities are identified here.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item