Johannes Dietrich Eduard Schmeltz (May 19th, 1839, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 - 1909) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 ethnographer

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

 and naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

.

Schmeltz had no formal scientific training but studied with many well established Hamburg naturalists including
Georg Semper

Georg Semper

Georg Semper was a German entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera.His Philippine Lepidoptera are in Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt am Main and his Indomalaya and Australasia specimens are in Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde Dresden...

, Otto Semper, Carl Friedrich August Alexander Crüger

Carl Friedrich August Alexander Crüger

Carl Friedrich August Alexander Crüger was a German entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera.His collection of world Lepidoptera is in the Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum .-Works:...

 and Johann Georg Christian Lehmann

Johann Georg Christian Lehmann

Johann Georg Christian Lehmann was a German botanist.Born at Haselau, near Uetersen, Holstein, Lehmann studied medicine in Copenhagen and Göttingen, obtained a doctorate in medicine in 1813 and a doctorate in philosophy from he University of Jena in 1814...

.
A keen lepidopterist

Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...

 he corresponded with Philipp Christoph Zeller

Philipp Christoph Zeller

Philipp Christoph Zeller was a German entomologist.Zeller was born at Steinheim Württemberg, two miles from Marbach, the birthplace of Schiller. The family moved to Frankfurt where Philip went to the gymnasium where natural history was not taught. Instead, helped by Alois Metzner, he taught...

. In 1863 Schmeltz became "Kustos" or senior curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

 of the Museum Godeffroy

Museum Godeffroy

The Museum Godeffroy was a museum in Hamburg, Germany, which existed from 1861 to 1885.The collection was founded by Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy, who became a wealthy shipping magnate a few years after the expansion of the his trade towards Australia and the South Seas. His expert collectors and...

 in Hamburg, which specialised in the natural history and ethnography of the South Seas. The museum was described in Dutch, Danish, German, English, and Austrian scientific journals as one of the best collections of its kind. His main business was to transfer all the natural and ethnographic material, which had been collected, to the accordant university departments for identification. After been sent back he had to fill it into the collection. He remained in this post after suspension of payment of J. C Godeffroy & Sohn in December 1879. In 1885 all inventory has to be sold as the whole quarter, where the museum had been located, would break down for new buildings. By then an authority on the ethnography of the Pacific islands he left Hamburg in 1882 to become the conservator of the Rijks Ethnographisch Museum in Leiden. In 1897 he became its director.

Schmeltz founded the editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 of Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden, 1888-?, an anthropological journal. Amongst the contributors and editorial panel were Otto Finsch

Otto Finsch

Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch was a German ethnographer, naturalist and colonial explorer.-Biography:...

 and Rudolf Virchow

Rudolf Virchow

Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...

 and Edward Burnett Tylor

Edward Burnett Tylor

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor , was an English anthropologist.Tylor is representative of cultural evolutionism. In his works Primitive Culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell...

. At this time he had the title "Doktor".

Works

One of Schmeltz´ museum duties was to produce sales catalogues, since the museum was independent of the mercantile and shipping company J. C Godeffroy & Sohn. These were lists with descriptions of duplicate ('Doubletten) natural history specimens and artifacts offered to private collectors or other museums. Some of the catalogues began with narratives of collecting expeditions and collecting details (Topographische und zoologische Notizen).

The Catalogues

• year?' Catalog I der zum Verkauf stehenden Doubletten aus dem naturhistorischen Expeditionen der Herren Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn in Hamburg'. Hamburg
• 1865 Catalog II der zum Verkauf stehenden Doubletten aus dem naturhistorischen Expeditionen der Herren Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn in Hamburg. Hamburg. iv + 33 pp.
• 1866 Catalog III der zum Verkauf stehenden Doubletten aus dem naturhistorischen Expeditionen der Herren Joh.Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn in Hamburg. Hamburg.iii + xii + 52 pp.
• 1869 Museum Godeffroy. Catalog IV, nebst einer Beiläge, enthaltend: topographische Notizen; Beschreibung neuer Bryozoen von Senator Dr. Kirchenpauer zu Hamburg und einer neuen Asteriden-Gattung von Dr.Chr. Lütken zu Kopenhagen. Wilhelm Mauke Söhn Perthes-Besser & Mauke, Hamburg xxxix + iii + 139 + 2 pp.
• 1874 Museum Godeffroy. Catalog V. Nebst einer Beiläge enthaltend topographische und zoologische Notizen. L. Friedrichsen & Co., Hamburg. xxxvi + ii + 215pp.
• 1877 Museum Godeffroy. Catalog VI. Nachträge zu Catalog. V.. L. Friedrichsen & Co., Hamburg v + 108 pp.
• 1879 Museum Godeffroy. Catalog VII. Wirbeltheire(Animalia vertebrata) und Nachträge zu Catalog V & VI aus den übrigen Thierklassen. L. Friedrichsen and Co., Hamburg. viii + 99 pp.
• 1881 Museum Godeffroy, Hamburg. Catalog VIII. Zoologischer Anzeiger 4 (91) (Beilage)

Other (partial list)

• 1881 with R. Krause Die ethographisch-anthropologische Abtheilung des Museums Godeffroy. 1881 687 pages, 46 tables, 1 map., Hamburg (L. Friedrichsen & Co)
• 1888 with R. Krause. Die ethnographisch anthropologische Abtheilung des Museum Godeffroy. Archiv f. Ethnographie, Bd. I, 60-7.
• 1897 with Johann Stanislaus Kubary
  John Stanislaw Kubary
  John Stanislaw Kubary , also stated as Jan Stanislaw Kubary, Jan Kubary, or Johann Stanislaus Kubary, was a Polish naturalist and ethnographer....
  
  , der Erforscher der Südsee-Inseln, gest. im Oktober 1896 auf der Insel Ponape'. [Johann Stanislaus Kubary, the researcher of the South Sea Islands, who died in October 1896 on the island of Pohnpei]. Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 10, pp. 132–136. Long obituary of Kubary.http://marshall.csu.edu.au/CNMI/CNMIBIB/0589.pdf