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
Notes:
The Harz Mountains have a long history as a center of mining of silver, copper, lead, iron, and minerals. Pictured here is a specimen of rock crystal from present-day Neudorf, Saxony-Anhalt. In the 18th century the Electorate of Hanover was about one hundred kilometers northwest of the Harz Mountains.
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.
