THE SPANG COLLECTION OF MINERALS. 443 



THE SPANG COLLECTION OF MINEKALS. 



By ALBERT K. LEEDS, 



PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE STEVENS POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 



THE increasing taste for the pursuit of natural science in this 

 country is strikingly exhibited by the rapid increase in the num- 

 ber of gem and mineral collections. The taste is not confined to men 

 of any one profession, but is cultivated by lawyers, physicians, artists, 

 engineers, iron-masters and persons in every rank and walk of life. 

 Some of the collections thus formed are valuable in a scientific point 

 of view, on account of their being receptacles for specimens obtained 

 in the prosecution of mining enterprises, or from local discoveries 

 arising in the opening of quarries, the development of farm-lands, or 

 cutting of canals and road- ways; thus preserving material which other- 

 wise would be lost, and which ultimately must be handed over to the 

 skilled mineralogist for accurate description and analysis. Other pri- 

 vate collections are of deep interest on account of containing speci- 

 mens of such exceeding rarity and costliness as to surpass aught that 

 our colleges with their hitherto meagre endowments can display. 

 This is especially true of the magnificent cabinet, some few of whose 

 wonders I desire cursorily to describe in the present sketch, and which, 

 by very general consent, is regarded as one of the finest collections 

 in existence at the present time. This result has been achieved by 

 an unsparing expenditure of money, time, and energy, not only in this 

 country and Europe, but in every part of the world ; extending to 

 the sending out of paid collectors, the blasting of rocks in remote 

 mountain-districts, the outbidding of all rivals when cabinets were 

 offered for sale, and an unceasing watch over the fate of every unique 

 specimen known to mineralogists. In some instances entire collections 

 were purchased in order to secure a few remarkable specimens. To 

 the man of science the collection affords the gratification of examining 

 fine specimens of bodies so extremely rare that few persons have ever 

 beheld them. The resources of the cabinet are most generously placed 

 at the disposal of those engaged in any special mineral research ; and, 

 finally, the munificent owner proposes eventually to endow some insti- 

 tution of learning in this country with the perfected cabinet. 



It is difficult to begin where so many objects worthy of study pre- 

 sent themselves, and I shall not attempt a systematic description of 

 this accumulation of minerals, which, though crowded together, can 

 barely find room in eleven cases of drawers, a fire-proof safe and six 

 glass show-cases. In the inclosed cases are more than 300 drawers, 

 averaging about 25 specimens to the drawer. 



But in the first place the tourmalines attract our attention. Of 



