Herbert Smith (mineralogist)

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Herbert Smith
CBE
Born(1872-05-26)26 May 1872
Edgbaston, England
Died20 April 1953(1953-04-20) (aged 80)
EducationWinchester College
Alma mater New College, Oxford
Known forGemstones (1912)
Scientific career
FieldsMineralogy, gemmology
InstitutionsBritish Museum (Natural History), London
Herbert Smith's refractometer Herbert Smith refractometer.gif
Herbert Smith's refractometer

George Frederick Herbert Smith CBE (26 May 1872 – 20 April 1953) was a British mineralogist who worked for the British Museum (Natural History). [1] He discovered the mineral paratacamite in 1906, and developed a jeweller's refractometer for the rapid identification of gems. [2] The minerals smithite and herbertsmithite are named after him, [1] as is Herbert's rock-wallaby. [3]

Contents

Career

Smith was born in 1872, went to school at Winchester College and then to New College, Oxford. In Oxford, he studied mathematics from 1891 to 1895, gaining first class marks, and then graduated in physics in 1896. [4] Smith was appointed as an assistant in the British Museum (Natural History) in December 1896. [5] He worked in the mineralogy department of the museum until 1921, when he became assistant secretary of the museum, succeeding Charles E. Fagan. [6]

In his mineralogical career, Smith worked on topics including the determination of mineral structures and compositions. He wrote papers on the structure of the gold telluride mineral calaverite (AuTe2); [7] and he described the new copper-zinc oxychloride mineral paratacamite. [8] Smith also developed new instruments for the practical measurement of the crystallographic and optical features of minerals and gems (goniometers and a refractometer), [4] and wrote a text book on gemstones and gemmology that was first published in 1912, [9] [10] and went through many editions, with the thirteenth edition published in 1958. [11]

In his role as secretary of the museum, he oversaw the expansion of the museum and the creation of new buildings for the department of entomology; and he was in charge of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Natural History museum in 1931. He also started the practice of selling postcards of museum items, and established a sports club for the staff of the museum. [6] He served as secretary of the museum until 1935, [12] before returning to the mineralogical department for two years before retirement. [4] He retired in 1937. [13]

In 1927, in conjunction with the Society of Civil Servants, Smith arranged for a special train to take civil servants to Richmond, Yorkshire, to view the solar eclipse. [14] [6] Smith provided pieces of smoked glass for viewing, and wrote a guide to the eclipse. Richmond was in the line of totality, and many thousands of visitors attended on fleets of special excursion trains that day, including Virginia Woolf, who described the events in her diary and in a 1928 essay The Sun and the Fish. [15] [16] At totality, the Sun was obscured by clouds. [6]

Professional service

In 1918, Smith helped to establish the Society of Civil Servants 'to cover the middle and upper grades of the service'. [17] He was honorary secretary of this society from 1918 to 1925, vice-president from 1925 to 1928, and president for the period 1928 to 1932. [13]

Smith played a major role in the professional work of gemmologists in the United Kingdom. He set and marked the first diploma in gemmology (from 1912), [6] and was later an examiner for the Gemmological Association of Great Britain (Gem-A) from 1931 to 1951. He was elected president of the association from 1942 to 1953, and was awarded the title of honorary fellow in 1946. [18]

Smith served on the council of the Royal Albert Hall from 1930 to 1953, and worked for many years for the society for the promotion of nature reserves, which eventually became the UK government agency, Nature Conservancy in 1948 and the National Parks Commission in 1949. [6] [19]

Recognition

In 1905, mineralogist R H Solly named a silver arsenic sulphide mineral (AgAsS2) smithite after Smith. This mineral was from the Lengenbach Quarry in the Binn valley, Switzerland. At that time, Smith was working on other minerals from the same location. [20] [6] In 2004, a copper zinc oxychloride mineral (ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2) herbertsmithite was named after Smith, since it was found to share chemical and structural features with paratacamite, which Smith had discovered in 1906. [21]

In 1926, Herbert's rock-wallaby, Petrogale herberti was named in Smith's honour, to reflect the assistance he had provided to Hubert Wilkins, on whose expedition the wallaby had been discovered. [3]

In June 1949, Smith was awarded the CBE for 'services to the flora and fauna of the British Isles'. [22]

Family

Smith married Rosalie Ellerton (d. 1936), and they had a daughter. Smith died on 20 April 1953, after a short illness. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thortveitite</span>

Thortveitite is a rare mineral consisting of scandium yttrium silicate (Sc,Y)2Si2O7. It is the primary source of scandium. Occurrence is in granitic pegmatites. It was named after Olaus Thortveit, a Norwegian engineer. It is grayish-green, black or gray in color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Painite</span> Borate mineral

Painite is a very rare borate mineral. It was first found in Myanmar by British mineralogist and gem dealer Arthur C.D. Pain who misidentified it as ruby, until it was discovered as a new gemstone in the 1950s. When it was confirmed as a new mineral species, the mineral was named after him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hutchinsonite</span> Mineral

Hutchinsonite is a sulfosalt mineral of thallium, arsenic and lead with formula (Tl,Pb)2As5S9. Hutchinsonite is a rare hydrothermal mineral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert's rock-wallaby</span> Species of marsupial

Herbert's rock-wallaby is a member of a group of seven very closely related rock-wallabies found in northeastern Queensland, Australia. Herbert's is the most southerly and most widespread of the group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbertsmithite</span> Halide mineral

Herbertsmithite is a rhombohedral green-coloured mineral with chemical formula ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2. It is named after the mineralogist Herbert Smith (1872–1953) and was first found in 1972 in Chile. It is polymorphous with kapellasite and closely related to paratacamite. Herbertsmithite has also been found near Anarak, Iran, hence its other name, anarakite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobermorite</span> Inosilicate alteration mineral in metamorphosed limestone and in skarn

Tobermorite is a calcium silicate hydrate mineral with chemical formula: Ca5Si6O16(OH)2·4H2O or Ca5Si6(O,OH)18·5H2O.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boleite</span>

Boleite is a complex halide mineral with formula: KPb26Ag9Cu24(OH)48Cl62. It was first described in 1891 as an oxychloride mineral. It is an isometric mineral which forms in deep-blue cubes. There are numerous minerals related to boleite, such as pseudoboleite, cumengite, and diaboleite, and these all have the same complex crystal structure. They all contain bright-blue cubic forms and are formed in altered zones of lead and copper deposits, produced during the reaction of chloride bearing solutions with primary sulfide minerals.

George Thurland Prior FRS was a British mineralogist. He made great contributions to mineralogical chemistry, petrology and meteoritics.

Vesselina Vassileva Breskovska was a 20th-century Bulgarian geologist, mineralogist and crystallographer.

Ivan Kostov Nikolov Hon HonFMinSoc, Aka Ivan Kostov, was a Bulgarian geologist, mineralogist and crystallographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kostovite</span>

Kostovite (IMA symbol: Ktv) is a rare orthorhombic-pyramidal gray white telluride mineral containing copper and gold with chemical formula AuCuTe4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bultfonteinite</span> Nesosilicate mineral

Bultfonteinite, originally dutoitspanite, is a pink, light-brown or colorless mineral with chemical formula Ca2SiO2(OH,F)4. It was discovered in 1903 or 1904 in the Bultfontein mine in South Africa, for which the mineral is named, and described in 1932.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diaboleite</span>

Diaboleite is a blue-colored mineral with formula Pb2CuCl2(OH)4. It was discovered in England in 1923 and named diaboleite, from the Greek word διά and boleite, meaning "distinct from boleite". The mineral has since been found in a number of countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paratacamite</span>

Paratacamite is a mineral in the halide minerals category. Its chemical formula is Cu3(Cu,Zn)(OH)6Cl2. Its name is derived from its association with atacamite. Paratacamite was first described by Herbert Smith in 1906. The zincian endmember Cu3(Zn)(OH)6Cl2 is called herbertsmithite, and paratacamite is polymorphous with botallackite and atacamite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fumarole mineral</span> Minerals which are deposited by fumarole exhalations

Fumarole minerals are minerals which are deposited by fumarole exhalations. They form when gases and compounds desublimate or precipitate out of condensates, forming mineral deposits. They are mostly associated with volcanoes following deposition from volcanic gas during an eruption or discharge from a volcanic vent or fumarole, but have been encountered on burning coal deposits as well. They can be black or multicoloured and are often unstable upon exposure to the atmosphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lizardite</span> Magnesium phyllosilicate mineral of the serpentine group

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matteo Tondi</span>

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Marie Louise Lindberg was a mineralogist. She was affiliated with the U.S. Geological Survey and noted for her studies of mineralogy in Brazil. Multiple species of mineral were first described by her, including frondelite, faheyite, moraesite, barbosalite, and tavorite. These 5 minerals were all described by her and various collaborators in the 1940s and 1950s, and sourced from a quarry in Galileia, Minas Gerais. As of March 1950, Lindberg held both Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smithite</span>

Smithite is a sulfosalt mineral with the chemical formula AgAsS2. It was first described by mineralogist R H Solly in 1905, in samples from the Lengenbach quarry near Binn, Switzerland, and was named for Herbert Smith, who was an assistant in the department of mineralogy of the British Museum. Smithite is a dimorph of trechmannite.

References

  1. 1 2 "Herbertsmithite: Mineral information, data and localities".
  2. ↑ Hurlbut Jr., C.S. (1984). "The jewelers refractometer as a mineralogical tool" (PDF). American Mineralogist. 69: 391–398.
  3. 1 2 Thomas, Oldfield (1926). "On various mammals obtained during Capt. Wilkin's expedition in Australia. Petrogale herberti". The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Ninth Series. xvii: 626–7.
  4. 1 2 3 "Dr. Herbert Smith". Nature. 135 (3423): 948. 1 June 1935. Bibcode:1935Natur.135R.948.. doi:10.1038/135948b0 – via www.nature.com.
  5. ↑ "Page 7324 | Issue 26802, 11 December 1896 | London Gazette | The Gazette". www.thegazette.co.uk.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Smith, W. Campbell (25 June 1953). "Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith, C.B.E." Nature. 171 (4364): 1093–1094. Bibcode:1953Natur.171.1093S. doi:10.1038/1711093a0 – via www.nature.com.
  7. ↑ Smith, G. F. Herbert; Prior, G. T. (26 May 1902). "On the remarkable problem presented by the crystalline development of Calaverite". Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society. 13 (60): 122–150. Bibcode:1902MinM...13..122S. doi:10.1180/minmag.1902.13.60.03 – via Cambridge University Press.
  8. ↑ Smith, G.F.H.; Prior, G.T. (1906). "Paratacamite, a new oxychloride of copper". Mineralogical Magazine. 14 (65): 170–177. Bibcode:1906MinM...14..170S. doi:10.1180/minmag.1906.014.65.09.
  9. ↑ Smith, G. F. Herbert (1912). Gem-stones and their distinctive characters. Methuen.
  10. ↑ J., J. W. (26 May 1912). "Gem-stones and their Distinctive Characters". Nature. 89 (2221): 294. Bibcode:1912Natur..89..294J. doi:10.1038/089294b0 – via www.nature.com.
  11. ↑ Stuart, Alan (1959). "Reviewed Work: Gemstones. Thirteenth edition by G. F. Herbert Smith, F. C. Phillips". Science Progress. 47: 169–170. JSTOR   43417006.
  12. ↑ "Records of Central Administration of the Natural History Museum" – via The National Archives.
  13. 1 2 "Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith". Nature. 139 (3525): 873. 1 May 1937. Bibcode:1937Natur.139Q.873.. doi:10.1038/139873a0 – via www.nature.com.
  14. ↑ "Total eclipse of the sun, 28 June 1927: printed papers relating to the Civil Service excursion led by George Frederick Herbert Smith". 25 October 1927 – via UK National Archives.
  15. ↑ "The day the sun went out in the dales, and uncovering the Skeeby hoard". The Northern Echo. 7 April 2024.
  16. ↑ "Close-Up | Disembodied Intercourse: Reflections on Virginia Woolf's 'The Sun and the Fish'". www.closeupfilmcentre.com.
  17. ↑ Smith, G. F. Herbert (26 November 1918). "The Society of Civil Servants". Nature. 102 (2558): 185–186. Bibcode:1918Natur.102..185S. doi:10.1038/102185a0 – via www.nature.com.
  18. ↑ Anon. (1968). "Sixty years of Gemmology in Great Britain". Journal of Gemmology. 11 (3): 69–80. doi:10.15506/JoG.1968.11.3.69.
  19. ↑ Smith, G. F. Herbert (1 October 1947). "Nature Protection in Great Britain". Nature. 160 (4066): 457–459. Bibcode:1947Natur.160..457S. doi:10.1038/160457a0 – via www.nature.com.
  20. ↑ Solly, RH (1905). "Some new minerals from the Binnenthal, Switzerland" (PDF). Mineralogical Magazine. 14 (64): 72–82. Bibcode:1905MinM...14...72S. doi:10.1180/minmag.1905.014.64.03.
  21. ↑ Braithwaite, RSW; Mereiter, K; Paar, WH; Clark, AM (1004). "Herbertsmithite, Cu3Zn(OH)6Cl2, a new species, and the definition of paratacamite" (PDF). Mineralogical Magazine. 68 (3): 527–539. doi:10.1180/0026461046830204.
  22. ↑ "Page 2803 | Supplement 38628, 3 June 1949 | London Gazette | The Gazette". www.thegazette.co.uk.
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