Specimen Catalogues

This series includes handwritten and typed specimen catalogues, many of which were written after the specimens arrived in the UK. There are also cabinets of index cards. The original handwritten specimen lists (often with accompanying location and photographic catalogues) can be located within the Expedition files (ref. CSEC 2).

The ethos behind Brian Harland’s approach to Svalbard and its geology harks back to the foundations of the subject as a defined science in 1807: make direct observations, collect materials and only then begin to develop hypotheses that integrate the evidence. 60,000 rocks, fossils and geological cores were collected during the Cambridge Svalbard Exploration period, which are now in the care of the Sedgwick Museum.