At a gathering of the School of Arts and Sciences on Dec. 6, 2022, the next tribute to the life and repair of the late Cornelius Searle Hurlbut, Jr., was unfold upon the everlasting information of the School.
Probably the most necessary mineralogists of the twentieth century, Cornelius “Connie” Searle Hurlbut, Jr., spent greater than half a century educating, researching, and extensively writing about gems and minerals. Acknowledged for his experience within the crystal construction of minerals and his many contributions to the information of pegmatite mineralogy, he’s in all probability greatest identified for his work on a number of editions of “Dana’s Guide of Mineralogy,” which is universally considered essentially the most full and necessary e-book on the science of mineralogy of the twentieth century.
Professor of Minerology, Emeritus, at Harvard, Hurlbut died at his dwelling in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Sept. 1, 2005, on the age of 99. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on June 30, 1906, Hurlbut was the son of Cornelius S. and Marion A. Hurlbut. He graduated with a B.A. from Antioch Faculty in 1929 and along with his A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard College in 1931 and 1933, respectively. Hurlbut educated below the Harvard professor Esper S. Larsen and wrote his dissertation on the Bonsall tonalite occurring in San Diego County, California. Hurlbut joined the college at Harvard in 1932 as a petrologist. Nonetheless, in 1934 his focus turned to mineralogy after he was enlisted by then Mineralogical Museum Curator and Professor of Mineralogy Charles Palache to help in educating Harvard’s introductory mineralogy course. After Palache retired in 1940, Hurlbut took over educating this course, which he continued to show till retirement in 1972. In 1954, he grew to become full Professor of Mineralogy. Hurlbut served as chair of Harvard’s Division of Mineralogy and Petrology from 1949 to 1960 and as a Visiting Professor at Boston Faculty from 1974 to 1977. Hurlbut married Anne Dawson in 1932 and so they had three youngsters, Neil, Patricia (Patty), and Marcus (Marc), earlier than she handed away in 1954. He married his second spouse, Margaret Richards Carver, in 1956 and so they spent practically half a century collectively earlier than she predeceased him in 2003. He’s survived by Patty and Marc and by six grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.
Hurlbut was a prolific author who contributed to public and scientific information about gems and minerals all through his life. In 1941, he was liable for a totally rewritten and up to date fifteenth version of “Dana’s Guide of Mineralogy.” He authored three extra up to date editions in 1952, 1959, and 1971, and, even after retirement, he co-authored with Cornelis Klein one other three up to date editions, in 1977, 1985, and 1993. Hurlbut didn’t confine his written contributions to strictly scientific tomes. In 1968, he authored “Minerals and Man,” a splendidly picture-laden e-book for most people, which the American Library Affiliation selected in 1969 as considered one of its annual most notable books. On this extra accessible vein, Hurlbut additionally revised Dana’s “Minerals and How one can Research Them,” largely rewriting the textual content alone in 1949 and updating it with W. Edwin Sharp in 1998.
Hurlbut had demonstrated an curiosity in gems as early because the Forties, when he joined the Gemological Institute of America’s Academic Advisory Board. After retirement, his analysis focus and curiosity moved firmly from minerology to gemology and he began to publish on the topic. In 1979, he co-authored (with George Switzer) the e-book “Gemology,” which primarily stands as the primary textbook on the topic. He co-authored the second version of this textual content with Robert Kammerling, which was printed in 1991. Hurlbut stayed concerned with gemological analysis proper up by means of his one centesimal 12 months, serving on the editorial board of Gems and Gemology, the quarterly journal of the Gemological Institute of America, from 1981 till his loss of life in 2005.
Hurlbut’s work in mineralogy, gemology, and training garnered him many honors and distinctions all through his profession. One of many earliest and most vital was having a mineral species named in after him. The mineral hurlbutite, a calcium beryllium phosphate new to science, was found on the Chandlers Mill Quarry in Newport, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, and named in 1952 by the modern mineralogist Mary Mrose to acknowledge Hurlbut’s contributions to mineralogy. In 1954, he was named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow for Earth Science. Hurlbut was additionally a longtime member of Geological Society of America and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served because the secretary of the Mineralogical Society of America (1945–1958) and later its president (1963). In 1966, the Nationwide Affiliation of Geoscience Academics introduced Hurlbut with the Neil Miner Award, which acknowledges people “for distinctive contributions to the stimulation of curiosity within the Earth sciences.” In 1993, he was awarded the Carnegie Mineralogical Award, which acknowledges excellent contributions to the sector of mineralogy by people or establishments.
Amongst Hurlbut’s lesser-known accomplishments had been his pursuits of tennis, which he continued effectively into his nineties, and of poetry — he could be distinctive as a poet of the science of crystallography! As we keep in mind this much-loved and revered man’s noteworthy contributions to science, we will finish with considered one of his whimsical mineral-inspired compositions:
Crystal Issues
When first I studied crystals
I didn’t have the knack
Of three dimensional considering:
This talent I appeared to lack.I’d flip and twist the crystal spherical
In hope that I may see
No less than one axis or a airplane
Of crystal symmetry.The prism, pinacoid and dome,
The rhombic pyramid
All appeared the identical to me,
It doesn’t matter what I did.However now I’ve studied lengthy and onerous,
And suppose I’m considerably sensible,
For in no size of time in any respect
The dice I acknowledge.
Respectfully submitted,
Frank Keutsch
Raquel Alonso-Perez
Charles Langmuir, Chair
