Arthur E. Smith Collection-Wheaton College

Mineral specimens in the Arthur E. Smith Collection at Wheaton College, located in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. Art Smith was an alumnus of the college, and when he passed away at the age of 74, his family donated the 30,000 piece collection that he had amassed over 5 decades to the college. A special dedication was held at the college on Saturday, Oct. 5. Many of the better pieces are on display at the Meyer Science Center on campus, in a stunning museum in the geology department. Art lived in Houston for most of his working career and worked as an exploration geologist, first for Texaco, and then for Murphy Oil where he retired in 2000. Art was an active member of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society and was a co-founder of the Mineral Section. He took control of the club's library and eventually built it into one of the finest society libraries in the United States. He also built the society's specimen inventory for the assembly of study collections to donate to schools. Art kept prodigious notes on the provenance of his specimens, and these have recently been published by his son Brett in a print-on-demand book at lulu.com entitled, "The Mineralogy of Texas", by Arthur E. Smith, Jr., 226 pages, ISBN: 9781329848764. The book was meticulously edited by Mark Ivan Jacobsen and Ruth Yeagar, working from Art's original text.