Gibbsite

Unknown Owner

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From the TYPE LOCALITY where it was first noted in 1822, this is an large and OUTSTANDING, aesthetic, drapery of the rare aluminum-containing species gibbsite upon host matrix. It was named after Colonel George Gibbs (1777-1834), original owner of the Gibbs mineral collection acquired by Yale University early in the nineteenth century (again, according to MINDAT). Gibbsite is an interesting aluminum hydroxide with very little heft to it, that otherwise tends to look like heavy smithsonite or hemimorphite at first glance. This specimen has a label In HIS OWN HAND, from the famous collection of Charles Shephard. ex.Charles Shepherd Collection (1804-1886), whom according to the Mineralogical Record Archive on him was with Benjamin Silliman's staff at Yale in 1827, as his assistant, and later as a lecturer on natural history at Yale (1830-1847) and then Amherst College. His large collection was donated to the Smithsonian, but afew specimens apparently found their way into the Academy collection, perhaps through trades with colleagues in the Philadelphia area.