History of the Mineralogical Collection

Before the French Revolution

Until the middle of the XVIIIth century, the art of Mining had not been prominent in France: admittedly, a few sovereigns, ministers or counselors had made a few attempts, which remained short-lived: Charles VI with his letters patent dated 1413 granting privileges, and hence duties to  mine owners and workers, Louis XI with his 1471 "Ordonance on the exploitation of Mines in the kingdom", Henri IV with his 1597, 1601 and 1604 edicts, Colbert between 1679 and his death. However, at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, absolute freedom was again given to any landowner to exploit the underground, leading to a proliferation of small and disastrous exploitations.

Not until 1739, when  the great stewart Trudaine reassesses his control over Mining and Public Works, is there any true mining policy to be found. The January 1744 decree clearly expresses this essential principle of French mining Law, independence of ground and underground property. From then on the latter can only be exploited after State authorisation. Moreover this decree establishes proper technical regulation of mining exploitation.

But running mines means being able to hire engineers and technicians without always needing to resort to foreigners (especially from Central Europe) as was usual. These engineers would be the only ones able to organise what was to become in less than a century the "great industry", and could help making the Art of mining into a true science. Creating a favourable intellectual framework, treatises, translations of works on mining exploitation and research, accounts of "mineralogical journeys" begin to multiply. As soon as 1766, concessionaires are taxed for  keeping up the "upcoming" School of Mining; the following year, Guettard soon helped by Monnet begins to make an inventory of the mining resources of the kingdom, bringing in the works of Jars, Gensanne, Grignon, Schreiber. In 1778, Sage, "distinguished" mineralogist, poor chemist but good promoter, successfully fosters the creation, in the Mint buildings where he fastuously settles in the Great Hall, together with his collections, of a public School of mineralogy and docimastic metallurgy, the only chair of which he occupies. Through this school, and the florid lectures he gave to "enlightened amateurs", he helped to create a climate in favour of the creation of the Ecole des Mines. Thence the decree given by the State Council on March 19th, 1783.
 
 

The King, being informed that the art of discovering & exploiting Mines has not in his kingdom made all the progress that it was susceptible to, that, among all who have been granted concessions, some have made no use of them and other have devoted, for no result, considerable funds ; & that those who have succeeded have not reaped all the profit they could expect, due to the difficulty of finding intelligent Directors : His Majesty had an account made regarding the different means that could be employed to foster the kind of industry which gives so great advantages to our neighbouring States & he recognized that  encouraging those who would research and exploit Minerals was not sufficient, that it was also necessary to train subjects to conduct works with as much surety as economy ; for these motives His Majesty resolved to establish a School of Mines...
 
 

On the same day, the council gave out two other arrests regulating coal and metal mines, these three texts backing up one another respectively.

The Ecole des Mines thus established was the eighth of its kind in Europe after Iekaterinenbourg (Sverdlovsk) in 1730, Joachimsthal, Clausthal, Berlin, Freiberg, Chemnitz, and Madrid. situated in the Mint buildings, it comprised two chairs, one of chemistry, mineralogy ad docimacy, occupied by Sage, and the other of physics, underground geometry, hydraulics and mining works by Guillot-Duhamel, and accessory professors. The duration of the studies was three years. It must be said that the arrest allocated a yearly sum of 3,000 pounds (around 200,000 French Francs of today) to create 12 scholarships "in favour of the children of directors and main workers of the mines who do not have enough wealth to send them to Paris for their studies..."

In 1786 the School had 21 students (among whom Brongniart) and had already trained such eagerly awaited engineers as would know how to "extract Salpetre, Iron and Coal out of their galleries" at the call of the Revolution and the Empire ! Unfortunately, though, reality has little regard for allegoric enthusiasm, and this highly historical period was nearly fatal to the young School which remained in a state of suspension of payments at the eve and beginning of the Revolution.

During the French Revolution

After a few serious mishaps, the Council of Mines reinstated the Ecole des Mines in Paris under a de facto regime in the "Hôtel de Vendôme", Courtonne's masterpiece, built in 1707 and forming the main quadrangle of today's School, more or less harmoniously adorned with various additions over the XIXth century.

It was written in the decree that a Cabinet of Mineralogy containing all mineral productions of the Republic, arranged according to the localities should be installed there and, in that purpose, mining engineers are recommended to gather all the Earth substances and to send them correctly labelled to the Agency of the Mines in order they will be placed in the Cabinet of Mineralogy.

Moreover, certain private collections will be bequeathed to the Cabinet, some of them having been confiscated to their previous owner by the "Comité de Salut Public":

- Guettard's collection,

- de Dietrich's samples, models and library,

- part of the samples and library previously belonging to Lavoisier,

- 500 samples from the Cabinet of the Saint-Sulpice Seminar, in 1794'

- Joubert's collection bought at the end of 1794' by the Agency after his death.

We have to mention that, in October 1794, Haüy was named curator of the Collection of Mineralogy, and Jerome Tonnelier attendant of the Cabinet of Mineralogy.

In 1795, with the purchase of Nottin's collection, a large sulphur specimen from Cadiz, beautiful nagyagites, and siderites from Allevard (Isère) enriched the Cabinet.

In 1796, the Agency of Mines accepted the bequeath of the major part of Boutin's collection, including one good part coming from one of Jacob Foster's auctions hold in February 1783.

After eight years of excellent work, a Consuls' decree dated February 1802, unfortunately inspired by the physiocratic bias of the Council of Mines ordered the creation, in place of Paris' Ecole des Mines, of two practical schools situated near mining sites, one in Geislautern in the Sarre district (iron, coal, mineralurgy, steel industry), the other in Pesey in the Mont-Blanc district (non-ferrous metals and salt sources).

Established with difficulty (only the Mont-Blanc practical school of mines worked in Pesey (1803) and later in Moutiers thanks to Schreiber), these schools physically disappeared with the end of the Empire in 1815.

In December 1816, a Royal ordonance finally re-established definitively the SChool of Mines in Paris.
 

Until 1814, harvests and purchases continued. As examples:

- in 1799, a mineral collection from Palatinate,

- in 1801, many and beautiful specimens sent by Champeaux from the Alps,

- in 1802, the School accepted as a gift from Freiberg a "mineralogical Collection according to the German system " (Werner), containing 500 samples.

However, very beautiful mineralogical samples were still rare, even if we can estimate at 100,000 the number of samples constituting the collections of the Council of Mines in 1814 inside the Hôtel de Mouchy. Most of those collections consisted of not very methodically filed series of minerals, ores, rocks and artificial products.

In August 1815, the School of Mines settled within the "Hôtel de Vendôme". In 1816, Brochant de Villiers formed a mineralogical collection of 800 specimens following the French System.

Since 1819, Dufrenoy took part in the organisation of the ores collection called " orictognostic collection "which one within the next year included nearly 4,000 samples, most of them coming from collection previously belonging to Heuland, Lefebvre d'Hellancourt, Patrin (specially beryl, topaz, zircon, of Ural and of Siberia). Several other specimens came also from the School of Mine of Moutiers and very beautiful sample of cuprite and azurite from Chessy (Rhône) were given by Jars in 1817.

In 1825, the School of Mines and the Natural History Museum came in for Sage's collections that Sage bequeathed to the king in 1783, (against a life annuity of 5 000 pounds) in order to constitute the Cabinet of the first School of Mines created by himself at Hôtel de la Monnaie.

Under the Convention, the moving of Sage's collection to the Natural History Museum was nearly decided but, due to some disputes between School of Mines, Natural History Museum and Polytechnic School, this didn't occur. Thus, Sage continued to manage his " Mines Museum " at the Hôtel de la Monnaie from the beginning of the Consulat up to his death, in 1824. After Sage's death, the State received all minerals, rocks and objects described in the year 1784' catalogue and its 1787' supplement. The Natural History Museum took 466 samples chosen among the best. The School of Mines accepted to receive 3,000 samples from the remaining ones.

Between 1825 and 1845, the Mineralogical Collection accepted or acquired several major collections previously owned by Lelièvre, Juncker, Héron de Villefosse, Paillette. Many samples came from Ural and Siberia. Haidinger sent specimens from Transylvania and Domeyko gave many minerals from Chile. In 1845, the Mineralogical Collection contained 5 600 medium sized specimens and 860 large-sized specimens. A most important enrichment was the acquisition of a famous collection belonging to the Marquis de Drée (15 000 parts), which included minerals, rocks and volcanic products (3 400) gathered by Dolomieu, brother-in-law of the Marquis.

The collection increased then regularly by gifts or acquisitions of exceptional samples:

- in 1850, purchase of the large Iceland spar, currently displayed in the entrance room, for the very important selling price of 3 000 francs,

- in 1855, a superb series of native copper samples of Ontario, given by Rivot.

During the period 1860 to 1870 the acquisitions of samples were numerous for example:

Then, let us quote, in 1881, the acquisition of Adam's collection (7 000 specimens), especially interesting by the rarity of certain specimens. Later, in 1888, Delessert's collection containing approximately 15 000 specimens was acquired.

After the sale of the Jewels of the French Crown, several precious stones were given to the Mineralogical Collection: emeralds, topazes, corundums, etc.

Alibert, famous for having discovered graphite mines in Siberia, made beautiful gifts to the School: much graphite carved objects, nephrite, lapis lazuli, etc.

Between the numerous other givers we have to mention specially Eckley Coxe and Egleston, two foreign alumni of the School, who provided a great number of splendid specimens.

In 1903, the New Emerald Company gave two splendid emeralds on gangue coming from Takovaïa in the Ural mounts. In 1910, the School accepted the legacy of E Bertrand, a small collection of 2000 parts of exceptional quality and of the highest scientific interest.

If the years which precede the First World War are still generous (during the period 1900 to 1913

1 760 samples were received), the following years are poor (only 400 specimens received from 1920 to 1939, most of them coming from the Wendler's collection acquired in 1936). In 1945, the collection is, like all the other French mineralogical public collections, in a deep sleep.

Between the 2 world wars the professors-collectors and their friends the amateurs, disappeared or in extinction due to scientism, specialisation and a general disaffection of things from the natural history kingdom.

In Paris, the Natural History Museum and the School of Mines expose samples classified according to completely out-of-date classifications.

WW2, in spite of its destroying fury, brought great progress to the Earth sciences, and the post-war period releasing the constraints due to the war lead to an explosion of activity in all the domains. In particular, the search for materials and fuels for the rebuilding and civil consumption, in France as in the whole world, lead to an extraordinary rise of the geological sciences and thus a revival of the mineralogical and petrographical collections.

Since 1949, this revival reached the School of Mine with the purchase of Glasser's collection constituted by several thousands of very small size but very well crystallised specimens.

In 1957, the direction of the School of Mines ordered Claude Guillemin to reorganise the collections. During that work he was helped by members of the French Geological Survey (B.R.G.M.). This reorganisation work lasted five years.

It was not enough indeed, to adopt a more modern classification. It was still necessary to consider a complete modernisation of the display mode of the specimens. This necessitated eliminating a great number of the previously exposed samples, in order of a better display of the remaining specimens.

From 1957 and up to 1990, the collection enriched quickly thanks to the activity of the Survey of Mineral Species (S.C.E.M.), created by the French Geological Survey (B.R.G.M.) in order to collect, store and redistribute mineralogical samples.

As the S.C.E.M. was in the way of closing, the Association of the Friends of the Library and Collections of the School of Mines (A.B.C. Mines) was created in 1988 in order to keep enriching the collections.

Since 1992, Lydie Touret being curator of the Museum, more than one hundred specimens have been acquired thanks (A.B.C. Mines), most of which originated recently discovered deposits (Pakistan, Tanzania...) or from countries recently opened to the trade of collection minerals (China, Vietnam...).