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[Festina]

Hello !
I was reading an 18th century book in which there is a reference to a classification of minerals done by Waller.

Anyone knows who was this Waller and in what book he published his taxonomic system?

Many thanks

[David Von Bargen]

I wonder if they were referring to the Swedish mineralogist Johan Gottschalk Wallerius.

[Val]

I think there was a Waller method to remove Iron staining on minerals such as Calcite/ Carbonates safely. I wonder if it refers to that person?

[GneissWare]

I found a reference to his 1747 work, stating:

Waller's System: According to the system of which was published in 1747 minerals were into four classes namely Terrce Lapides Minerce Concreta Each of these classes was subdivided four orders namely the first class into Macrce Minerales and Arenacece the second class into carei Viirescentes Apyri and Saxa the third into Salia Sulphurea Semimetalla and Metal a fourth into Pari Petrifacta Figurata and Calculi.

Waller was based in Stockholm.

His system is also referenced in "A general system of nature: through the three grand kingdoms of animals ..."
By Carl von Linné, 1806

However, bibliographies are absent from most of these older books, so pinning him down is difficult. Carl von Linné's treatise contains many classification schemes from folks I had never heard of either. Interesting thread.

[Pete Richards]

[Antonio Alcaide]

[Harjo]

Pete, what you wrote intrigues me. I used "Wallers solution" to remove iron staining on Hemimorphite several times, always without any problem.

[Antonio Alcaide]

The promised summary:

Wallerius Gottschalk (1709-1785): Swedish geologist who gave his name to the vallerite. Professor at Upsala University, he is known to have been the first geologist to establish a classification system of minerals according to chemical criteria. For that purpose he had to develop the chemical analysis and some qualitative tests. He also discovered several minerals.
(extracted from 'The name of the minerals' by José Luis Zamora)


From other sources: He wrote the book Agriculturae fundamenta chemica (1761) and he published several other studies on chemical, mineralogical and geological subjects and he used his own farm Hagelstena in Alsike (south of Uppsala) as an experimental field.

I'm not completely sure but it is very likely that Wallerius is the Latin equivalent of Waller as usual at that time (remember that most of the scientific books were published in Latin and Latin was the language at University).

The relationship with Linnaeus took place. They were of the same age and colleagues at Upsala. I have not found any references to the exact book where his classification system appears. It could be only a quotation made by Linnaeus as GneissWare suggests.

Regards.

[David Von Bargen]

Johan Gottschalk Wallerius 1747
Systema Mineralogicum: Quo Corpora Mineralia In Classes, Ordines, Genera Et Species Suis Cum Varietatibus Divisa Describuntur, Atque Observationibus, Experimentis Et Figuris A Neis Illustrantur

This was recently republished and is available in paperback (for those who can read latin)