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Article: The end of an era. (mineral collecting) (The History of Mineralogy: 1530-1799)
- Article from:
- The Mineralogical Record
- Article date:
- November 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 The Mineralogical, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The period of our investigation in this history of early mineral collecting comes more or less to an end in 1799, by which time the foundations were in place, or nearly so, for the beginning of the modern era of mineralogy. Fossils had been distinguished from minerals, and Cronstedt had conceptually distinguished chemically homogeneous mineral species from rocks. Hauy and Rome de l'Isle had established the foundations of mathematical crystallography, and Berzelius and Werner the chemical basis for mineral classification. Chemical quantitative analysis had been pioneered by Klaproth, based on the fundamental principles established for the science of chemistry by Lavoisier and ...