Nicolaus Steno (Niels Stensen) and Erasmus Bartholinus. Two 17 th Century Danish Scientists and the Foundation of exact Geology and Crystallography

Abstract

To the crystallographer who works to-day with his theodolitegoniometer or in his x-ray laboratory it is an established fact that minerals and crystallized matter on the whole are built in definite patterns and that they obey definite laws.

To the petrographer or mineralogist who in his daily work is dependent on his polarizing microscope, this instrument has become so commonplace a thing that its background and development to the perfection of our days hardly ever strikes his thoughts.

The present paper by Dr. A. Garboe considers it its object to remind geologists that the statement of some very different but equally fundamental principles of modern science are due to two Danish scientists, who each published a paper, one in Firenze the other in Copenhagen, in one and the same year - 1669.