The Mineral Collection

The Mineral Collection of the Geological Museum has deep roots in the past. As part of a university museum the collection can be traced back to 1772, when the "New Natural Theatre of the University" was established, but some specimens can be traced back to the middle of the 17th century. Thus the largest silver specimen from Kongsberg originates from the "Cabinet of Curiosities" founded in 1650. 

 
Kongsberg silver

Before 1772 two attempts were made to establish university collections with among others minerals, but in both cases the collections deteriorated. It was not until M.T. Brünnich was charged with the task that it was possible to establish a permanent museum. The nucleus was Brünnich's own mineral collection supplemented by the "Charlottenborg Collection" which the "Natural-husholdningskabinet" previously had founded in response to the unwillingness of the university to strengthen natural sciences. Both Brünnich and his successor Gregers Wad increased the collection through donations and purchases, e.g. in 1777 the museum acquired by auction Terkel Klevenfeldt's outstanding collection with among others gold from Sumatra and silver from Kongsberg.

Count J.G. Moltke

1810 was an epoch-making year for the museum. Count J.G. Moltke, prime minister of Denmark and patron of the university, had inherited his father's exclusive collection of minerals and fossils. Like his father, the count wanted to strengthen natural sciences, but was of the opinion that this should happen under the auspices of the university. Consequently he first bought all the mineralogical and zoological collections from the university, joined these collections with his own, supplemented them with the private collections of Chr. F. Schumacher, Chr. S.N. Münster and G. Wad, which he also purchased, and then he donated it all to the university. This substantial gift was followed by trusts for the maintenance of the collections, all in all a unique gesture, which justified the museum's new name: "Count Moltke's Mineralogical Museum belonging to the University".

During the years until 1848 the museum received a series of collections, of particular mineralogical interest were parts of K.L. Giesecke's collections from Greenland (1817), Count Raben's Collection (1819), J.G. Forchhammer's Collection (1831) and a number of collections from Norway, Hungary and Iceland.

In 1848 King Christian VIII died and his "Second Particular Mineral Cabinet" was turned over to the University.

The Royal Natural History Museum in Stormgade was abolished in 1862 and its collections were incorporated into the university museum, which subsequently owned all essential natural history collections in the country. The royal museum collections were an amalgamation of the collections from the "Cabinet of Curiosities" and a number of exquisite mineral collections, such as the collections of J.G.L. Manthey, Th. Holmskjold and P.C. Abildgaard.

Andradite var. melanite, in natrolite from the Gardiner complex, Greenland

Since this huge integration of royal, private and university collections which took part in the second half of the 19th century, the mineral collection has been further enlarged through purchase, exchange, donations and collection journeys. New acquisitions are no longer silver from Kongsberg, only rarely zeolites from Iceland and the Faroe Islands or exquisite exhibition specimens from classic localities in Central Europe, but more and more mineral specimens from Greenland. Already before the turn of the century, expeditions had returned with valuable material, especially from western Greenland, where the localities Ivigtut, Ilímaussaq, Narssârssuk and Fiskenæsset turned out to contain a large number of new minerals. This development has continued, and particularly after the second World War a large and valuable amount of material has been brought home from Greenland.

Magnificent specimen with crystals of cryolite.
The central crystal, twinned like almost every cryolite crystal, is close to 4 cm across.

One of the largest donations in recent years was in 1974 when the Cryolite Company Øresund handed over a considerable collection of minerals from Ivigtut, an increase which consolidated the position of the mineral collection as one of the leading collections in the world within our specialties.

The mineral collection owns a very large amount of type material of almost 60 different minerals, almost exclusively from Greenland. The oldest preserved specimen is a piece of cryolite, M.M. no. 1, which P.C. Abildgaard analysed in 1799; the label accompanying the specimen carries the name kriolit (cryolite) on print for the first time.

The museum's mineral collection is exhibited in two large halls and a smaller room. The major part of the space is taken up by the systematic exhibition, where the specimens are presented in 67 horizontal showcases. Around 1700 specimens of more than 550 mineral species are exhibited and laid up according to the latest edition of Strunz' "Mineralogische Tabellen" from 1970. The specimens - from a number of both classic and modern localities - illustrate first and foremost the variety of the mineral world, but also various aspects of crystallography, and have been chosen because they in one way or other are remarkable.

The systematic exhibition is supplemented by a number of wall cases of regional exhibitions illustrating the geological and mineralogical conditions for selected localities, first of all from Greenland. The exhibitions reflect the colossal richness of even very rare minerals from such Greenland localities as the Ilímaussaq Complex, the Ivigtut Cryolite occurrence, the Narssârssuk pegmatite and the Gardiner Complex. Other regional exhibitions show zeolites from the Faroe Islands and zeolites and calcite from Iceland, and some of the most appreciated specimens of the mineral collection, the silver specimens from the world- famous mines near Kongsberg in Norway. Intensive use of well- crystallized minerals is also the hallmark of the crystallographic exhibition, which gives a detailed insight into both crystallography as well as the physics of crystals.

Curator:

Ole Johnsen