Description

DURAND (V.), Minéralogie. Cristallographie. Cailloux, s. l. n. d. [Saint-Etienne ? ca 1900].

Large octavo of (69) leaves ; paperback, original cardboard cover, red cloth spine, partially printed historiated label affixed to the front cover: “Ecole Nationale des Mines de St.-Etienne, H. Cuny, Papetier-Libraire, 2, rue Camille Colard”.

With more than 580 drawings of minerals, cristals et optical diagrams/

An interesting notebook of handwritten notes, interspersed with numerous diagrams, transcribing a mineralogy course given at the École des Mines de Saint-Étienne at the turn of the 20th century.

After a brief introduction and two general chapters on crystallography and crystal symmetry, the course devotes considerable space to various crystal systems: cubic, senary, ternary, tetragonal, orthohombic, clinorhombic, and anorthic. This is followed by a section on the physical study of crystals (cohesion, hardness, pyroelectricity, optical properties, dispersion, optical rotation, and color). Nearly half of the notebook is dedicated to the description of mineral species.

The student signed “V. Durand” on the label on the front cover. This could be Victor Durand, who graduated in 1906, according to the booklet *L’Ecole nationale des Mines de Saint-Etienne à la Guerre 1914-1918* (1921), which lists the students and alumni of the school who died or served in the First World War. Victor Durand, at the time of this publication in the early 1920s, was a mining engineer in Decazeville.