c. 1550-1632

Flemish mineralogist who produced the first systematic treatise on minerals. In Gemmarum et lapidum historia (1609) Boodt describes and classifies over 600 minerals based on his own observations and lists over 200 more mentioned by others. He used various categories to classify minerals, dividing them into great and small, rare and common, transparent and opaque, combustible and incombustible, as well as employing a three-degree scale of hardness. Boodt also noted the crystalline forms of some minerals.