Ludwig Mayer, a prominent collector of minerals and his collection in the National Museum in Prague

Abstract

Ludwig Mayer (*1879, †?) was an significant collector of minerals from Bílina near Teplice. He personally searched minerals in terrain. He also purchased large amount of minerals from dealers or exchanged with other collectors. He deserved a number of interesting or completely new mineralogical findings, which were enriching the overall knowledge of mineralogical conditions of the Bohemian Central Highlands. Many of his findings were published by profesor Josef Emanuel Hibsch (*1852, †1940), the greatest expert on geological conditions of the Bohemian Central Highlands. From 1939 to 1945 Mayer was the manager of geological collections of the museum in Teplice. A total of 596 pieces of minerals from the Mayer’s collection came to the systematic part of the mineralogical collection of the National Museum in Prague. The core of this amount consists of documentary valuable minerals from several important mineralogical sites of the Central Bohemian Highlands, such as Dolní Zálezly, Církvice, Mariánská Rock in Ústí nad Labem, Radejčín and new site Chudoslavice with yellow crystals of chabazite, discovered by Mayer. A total of 54 samples of minerals from the Mayer collection were selected for the newly prepared permanent exhibition of minerals of the National Museum in Prague.