Call Number:

90-025

Repository:

Wagner Free Institute of Science

Extent:

0.5 linear feet

Language:

English

Date:

1923-1987 (inclusive)

Abstract:

Paul Seel (1904-1982) was born in 1904 in Breslau, Silesia, Germany. Although he was never a professional mineralogist, Seel was an avid and dedicated amateur mineral collector who would become associated with many of the field’s most notable people. By 1925 he had earned a degree in civil engineering, and by 1926 had left Germany to start a life in the United States.

In 1929, Seel started working with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, where he worked until 1964 as an expert on engineering specifications, inspection and testing procedures for suburban transportation systems, Metroliners, and jet turbine cars. In 1936, during a trip to Berlin for the Olympics, Seel married Hilde, whom he had met 15 years earlier in Germany. His honeymoon with Hilde would be the first of many mineralogical adventures, “seeking minerals, in every state of the United States, the full length of Canada twice, and in 24 of the 29 states of Mexico” (Desautels, 1986, 1275).

It was also in 1936 that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company transferred Seel to Philadelphia, a move that intensified his mineralogical career. Once there, he joined the prestigious Philadelphia Mineralogical Society, where he would meet Bill Van Horn, “an avid micromounter, and Dr. L.C. Wills, author of the first authoritative article on micromounting and a friend of early micromounters Rakestraw, Fiss, Keeley, Bement, and Jefferis, among others” (Hurlbut, 1997). Seel, in 1950, joined the Leidy Microscopical Society and served as president from 1957-1963 and from 1979-1981. He was elected trustee of the Wagner Free Institute of Science in 1964 and was elected vice president in 1969; he served in both positions until his death in 1982.

In his will, Seel left his extensive mineral collection to the Denver Museum of Natural History. His collection contained more than 17,000 specimens from 98 countries, and his diamond collection alone contained more than 5,000 crystals. Seel made many sketches and drawings of his crystals and was a popular speaker at mineral clubs all over the United States and Canada. Paul Seel died in 1982 and his wife, Hilde, died in 1987. In 1992, seelite, “a uranium mineral from the Talmessi mine in central Iran and Rabejac in Herault, France was accepted by the IMA as a new mineral. It was named for Paul and Hilde, ‘a husband-and-wife team of American mineralogists who left their mark on the affections of many of us’” (Bariand et al. quoted in Hurlbut, 1997).

Sources

Desautels, P.E. (1986). Memorial of Paul Seel 1904-1982. American Mineralogist, 71, 1275-1276.

Hurlbut, J.F. (1997). The Micromount Collection of Paul Seel. Rocks & Minerals, 72(1).

The Paul and Hilde Seel Papers collection contains documents that primarily reflect Paul Seel’s interest and career in mineralogy. There are several notebooks created by Paul Seel containing sketches and drawings of crystals, as well as programs, awards, photographs, and memorabilia from various mineralogy clubs and conventions. Other papers within the collection deal with personal matters, such as: the correspondence between the Seels and Harry Trudell; the original certificates of naturalization and citizenship for Hilde and Paul Seel; the Seel’s original certificate of marriage; and photographs of the Seel’s home that accompany Hilde Seel’s will.

This collection will be of particular interest to mineralogists who are interested in Paul Seel’s sketches, drawings, and notes of crystals and to those with an interest in mineralogy clubs and competitions. The Paul Seel scrapbook (Folder 19) contains photographs of Buzz Aldrin's appearance at the 21st Annual Convention of the Eastern Federation of Mineralogical & Lapidary Societies held in Lake Placid, N.Y., June 1971.