State Museum of Natural History. 21 



LIST OF MINERALS IN THE GENERAL COLLECTION OF THE 



MUSEUM. 



APPENDIX B. 



Minerals. 



This list is here presented not as a catalogue, but rather as a guide 

 to the collection. It is a transcript of the labels upon the specimens, 

 with some additions of mineralogical terms necessary to proper expla- 

 nation, and the insertion of specific names in some cases, to make the 

 arrangement conformable to the newer systems of classification. Wher- 

 ever the localities could be recognized with certainty from the characters 

 and known occurrence, they have been added. Doubts as to species 

 and localities are indicated by the mark ot interrogation. A few excep- 

 tions in the order of arrangement are due to a difference in the deter- 

 mination of the species, otherwise the arrangement in the cases and the 

 order of numbering conform to the mineralogical system. The order 

 of the list and of the collection in the cases agree; beginning at the west 

 of the stairway in the case against the south wall in the third story, it 

 continues to the corner and thence along the west wall to the front or 

 street wall of the building. The reading is from left to right and from 

 top downward in the several sections of the cq^es. 



The sources of this general collection are in part here stated. All 

 the specimens coming from the Van Rensselaer, Simms and Gebhard 

 collections are thus credited. A few other donors are mentioned under 

 their respective gifts. 



The Brazilian collection was a donation from the National Museum 

 of Rio de Janeiro. The list of minerals and ores in it was printed in the 

 nineteenth annual report of the Regents on the State Cabinet, 1866. 



The Pickett collection, principally one of fossils, was purchased for 

 the Museum in 1867.* The minerals in it are mostly from Lockport, 

 N. Y., and from New England. 



The Simms collection, consisting of minerals, fossils and ethnological 

 implements, with some historical relics, was added, by purchase in 1870.! 



The minerals of the Gebhard collection were received in 1872.}; This 

 collection was purchased for its fossils, and the minerals were incidental 

 to it. The localities are omitted on many of the original labels. 



The minerals of the Van Rensselaer collection were added in 187 2. § 

 They were collected mainly in New England by the late Dr. Jeremiah 

 Van Rensselaer, and the collection was the gift of Mrs. Van Rensselaer 

 through T. L. Harison, Secretary of the New York State Agricultural 

 Society. Owing to the bad condition of the wrappings and labels 

 through exposure in a damp storage place previous to their reception, 

 the localities were not identified. 



* Twenty-first Annual Report on Museum, pp. 20-21. 



t Twenty-fourth Annual Report on State Museum, pp. 6, 7 and 27-28. 



% Twenty-sixth Annual Report on State Museum, p. 7. 



§ Twenty-sixth Annual Report on State Museum, pp. 7, 8 and 19. 



