| Description | Files in this series were assembled from different parts of the Department when the archive was first listed. Most of the files would have been held in either the mineralogy or petrology sections, but some (DF10/23, 28 and 52) are files from the Keeper's office, some (DF10/61, 62 and 66) come from the working papers of the individuals concerned, while others (DF10/37, 38 and 40) may well have been removed from the official reports now in DF3.
All files in the class relate in some way to the collections of rocks, minerals and meteorites. They document the acquisition or non-acquisition of particular specimens or collections, the regulation of loans and exchanges, the crystallographic measurement of specimens from the collections, the treatment of locality information in the registers and on exhibition labels, and the evacuation and return of specimens in wartime. The earliest material dates from the days of Konig and Sir Joseph Banks, well before the foundation of the Department, while the latest documents were produced only a few years before they were listed. |