Die Kataloge der „Naturhistorischen Sammlungen“ von Georg Gasser

Georg Gasser compiled catalogues for the different branches of his collection. The fossil collection was included in what he named his “naturhistorische Sammlungen” (collections of natural history), which he subdivided in a first part (numbers 1 to 1900) for recent zoological specimens, and a second part (numbers 1901 to 4130) for fossils. The internal organization of the catalogues reflects an anthropocentric and teleological view of life on Earth, with humans at the top, followed by mammals and other vertebrates, followed by invertebrates. Apparently, Gasser compiled his catalogues around 1895 and only updated them for a short time, as fossil specimens acquired from 1899 on are not reported in the catalogue.