Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
October 1766
Primary Source Reference:
"Catalogue raisonné des morceaux d'Histoire Naturelle que j'ai l'honneur d'envoyer ci-joint à Monsieur du Simitierre," Du Simitière Scraps, Library Company of Philadelphia, no. 50, p. 1
Additional Source Text:
"Plus - minus pellucide, duritie ab adamante nona &c."==Trans.: More or less transparency and hardness as new diamonds== etc.
Marginal note in Du Simitière's hand: "perdu" (lost)
Notes:
This specimen was probably a sapphire.
The donor was a man named Frey, of Basel, Switzerland. He may have met Du Simitière during miltary campaigns in Flanders. The men corresponded and exchanged natural history specimens in 1765 and 1766. Frey's covering letter for his shipment of fifty fossils and other natural history specimens was dated at Basel, 1 Oct 1766. Du Simitière Papers, Library Company of Philadelphia.
