Babić, D.

Blagojević-Babić, S.

Vasković, Nada

English

Blagojević-Babić S.

Babić D.

Vasković Nada

University of Szeged

Acta Mineralogica-Petrographica, Abstract Series 5, Szeged, 2006 www.sci.u-szeged.hu/asvanytan/acta.htm 18 THE COLLECTION OF SERBIAN MINERALS FROM 1889  BLAGOJEVIĆ-BABIČ, S., BABIČ, D. & VASKOVIĆ, N.  Institute of Mineralogy, Crystallography, Petrology and Geochemistry, Faculty of Mining & Geology, University of Belgrade, Đušina 7, 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro E-mail: danislav@mkpg.rgf.bg.ac.yu; nadavask@eunet.yu   The year 1880 has been taken as an official beginning of the Serbian Geology School. This is the time when the Chair of Mineralogy and Geology was split from the Department of Natural and Engineering Science at the High Education School (HES) in Belgrade. The well-respected scientist, JOVAN ŽUJOVIĆ (1856–1936) held professorship at this chair. The roots of modern geology in Serbia can be traced a few decades before i.e. at the reign of Prince MILOŠ, who initiated prospecting of mineral resources in 1835 by calling HERDER to visit Serbia. Namely, the progression of geology in Serbia started with the opening of the Department of Natu-ral and Technical Science (NTS) in 1853 at the Serbian Royal Lyceum. The first Professor of Mineralogy and Geology was the world famous botanist JOSIF PANČIĆ (1814–1888). The Mineralogical Cabinet was founded at the Lyceum in 1845. It comprised the first collection of minerals and rocks with ba-sic equipment for mineralogical research. The lyceum was later transformed into the HES. The HES owned a few collections of minerals and rocks. Among them the most unique was a collection of Serbian minerals established on the 1st January in 1889 by professor ŽUJOVIĆ. He arranged the specimens according to the dis-tricts of Serbian Kingdom and within them by localities. Ac-cording to the original list written by ŽUJOVIĆ the collec-tion involved specimens from 17 districts with 183 localities (Fig. 1). Each district contained several localities. Currently, the collection comprises 200 specimens from 120 localities. This is chiefly a collection of ore minerals. Careful examina-tion of specimens within each district has shown that the col-lection represents a result of the contemporary ore prospect-ing of the Serbian Kingdom. The specimens from the collec-tion were also used as a teaching means at the HES. The available documents and literature data were care-fully scrutinized. Despite all, it is not possible to find out how this collection arose. We can only suppose that foreign and later Serbian geologists collected specimens during their prospecting journeys through Serbia and stored them at the Mineralogical Cabinet, the NTS and the HES. There is no doubt, according to the plentiful geological archive (1835–1889), that a lot of foreign geologists visited Serbia: BOUÉ (1836–37), HERDER (1835), RECKEN-DORF (1842), HOCHSTETTER (1869), TIETZE (1870), SZABÓ (1872–75), TOULA (1875, 1880). Among them only HERDER and RECKENDORF left a great number of min-eral specimens in Serbia from their prospecting journeys. These specimens probably were the basis for creation of the first collection of Serbian minerals. Inspired by their exam-ple, the first Serbian geologists, educated abroad, had started to enrich this collection by new specimens. The collection of Serbian minerals from 1889 is a part of the Museum of Minerals and Rocks at the Department of Mineralogy, Crystallography, Petrology and Geochemistry (Faculty of Mining and Geology, University of Belgrade) and represents one of the earliest ordered collections known in Serbia.     Fig. 1: Distribution of districts in Serbia in 1889. brought to you by COREView metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.ukprovided by University of Szeged

The collection of Serbian minerals from 1889

http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/31678/1/mineralogica_as_005_018.pdf

The collection of Serbian minerals from 1889

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