Abraham Gesner

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Abraham Gesner.

Abraham Pineo Gesner (born May 2, 1797 in Cornwallis Township , Nova Scotia , British Maritime Provinces , † April 29, 1864 in Halifax , Nova Scotia) was a North American-British doctor , chemist and geologist . Gesner's work is considered pioneering for the modern oil industry .

life and work

Origin and early career

Map showing the geological "districts" of Nova Scotia from Gesner's first comprehensive geological publication (1836)

Abraham Gesner, whose ancestors - which is said to include the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner - came to North America from Central Europe * in the early 18th century , was the son of Henry Gesner, brother of the North American-British politician Abraham Gesner . Henry Gesner originally came from New Jersey , but had fought on the side of the British in the American War of Independence and , like many other loyalists , moved to Nova Scotia ("New Scotland") after the Peace of Paris in 1783 .

Abraham Gesner Jr. enjoyed a very simple school education, which was typical of the rural regions in eastern North America at the time. Relatively shortly after his wedding ** he studied medicine in London from 1825 with the financial support of his father-in-law. *** After returning to Nova Scotia, he established himself as a doctor in Parrsboro . In addition, he conducted geological studies, collected numerous rock and mineral samples and in 1836 published a detailed treatise on the rock formations and mineral deposits in Nova Scotia.

* The information on the name of the immigrant ancestor, his degree of relationship to Abraham Gesner and his origin is different. According to Russell (1976) Gesner's grandfather "Nicholas" (without data) immigrated from the Netherlands, according to AT Gesner (1912) Gesner's great-grandfather Johan Hendrick (1681–1745) from the Palatinate (“Palatinate of the Rhine”). The second source also mentions the date of immigration: “10. – 12. June 1710 ".
** There are also contradicting information on this. According to Russell (1976) Gesner married in 1824, according to AT Gesner (1912) he married in 1822. However, both sources agree with the name of his wife, Harriet Webster.
*** According to Russell (1976), Gesner "seems" to have attended mineralogical and geological lectures in London and therefore returned to Nova Scotia with an increased interest in the geosciences. According to Murray (1993), his interest in the natural sciences existed even before he began studying medicine.

Geologist in New Brunswick

In 1837 Gesner, still living in Nova Scotia, worked as a geological surveyor for a coal mining company in the maritime province of New Brunswick ("New Brunswick"). As part of this he published open letters to Sir John Harvey , the former deputy governor of the province in which he, to promote the economic development of New Brunswick's, the establishment of a geological service and the implementation of a province-wide geological survey (Engl. Geological survey ) called . In 1838 the Provincial Parliament approved the appropriate funding ( £ 200 ) and Gesner was entrusted with the geological survey. This made him the first officially employed geologist both in a later Canadian province and in a British territory outside the motherland. As a result of the recording, which ran until 1842, Gesner published five reports on the geology of New Brunswick, on the basis of which a relatively detailed geological map was created.

In the course of the geological survey, Gesner had moved to Saint John . There he opened the Gesner Museum named after him in his house in 1842 . It was one of the first public museums in future Canada. The geological-mineralogical collection compiled privately in Nova Scotia and during the recording in New Brunswick by Gesner and his employees was exhibited there. This later went to a kind of cooperative, which kept the collection in a new building in Saint John, the Mechanics' Institute , accessible to the public and also expanded it. Eventually it went to the Natural History Society of New Brunswick and formed part of the basic stock of the collection of the New Brunswick Museum, founded in 1929 .

Also in 1842 Gesner accompanied the famous Scottish geologist Charles Lyell to the cliff coast of the then so-called "South Joggins" on the Bay of Fundy , today a very famous fossil site and world natural heritage site .

Contribution to petrochemicals

As part of his geological studies, Gesner developed a process in 1846 with which a relatively easily inflammable mineral oil can be extracted from oil shale . He called this mineral oil kerosene (very similar, but not 100% identical to the aircraft fuel that is called today ), although it was later called paraffine oil in Great Britain and petroleum ("stone oil") in German-speaking countries . Petroleum burned less soot and was cheaper than the whale or vegetable oil commonly used in lamps at that time .

In 1850 Gesner founded the "Kerosene Gaslight Company", which set up street lighting in Halifax and soon afterwards in many other places in what would later become Canada. In 1854 the company expanded to the USA and had its first branch there in Long Island ( New York ) under the name "North American Kerosene Gas Light Company". On June 27, 1854, he received US patents 11,203, 11,204 and 11,205 for his invention of kerosene.

Due to the increased demand for kerosene, it briefly looked as if the company could no longer meet the demand. Only with the discovery of crude oil , which can also be used to produce kerosene, could the demand continue to be met.

In 1861 Gesner brought out a publication called “A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum and Other Distilled Oils”, which became the reference work for mineral oil extraction and processing. Eventually Gesner's company was bought by Standard Oil, which still exists today, and Gesner returned to Halifax, where he became professor of natural history at Dalhousie University .

Honors

  • Memorial at Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax, built in 1933 by "Imperial Oil Ltd.", a subsidiary of Standard Oil
  • Canadian commemorative stamp with his portrait (2000)

literature

  • Kendall Beaton: Dr. Gesner's kerosene: The start of American oil refining. The Business History Review. Vol. 29, No. 1, 1955, pp. 28–53, doi: 10.2307 / 3111597 (alternatively: JSTOR )
  • Anthon Temple Gesner: The Gesner Family of New York and Nova Scotia. Middletown (CT), 1912 ( archive.org )
  • Rainer Hempel: Abraham Gesner: Father of the petroleum industry. Pp. 129-138 in: Lothar Zimmermann, Hartmut Froeschle, Myka Burkein (eds.): German Canadian Yearbook, Vol. 17. Historical Society of Mecklenburg, Upper Canada, Toronto 2002 ISSN  0316-8603
  • TJ Murray: Dr Abraham Gesner: the father of the petroleum industry. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Vol. 86, No. 1, 1993, pp. 43-44, PMC 1293824 (free full text)
  • Loris S. Russell: Gesner, Abraham. In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 9. University of Toronto / Université Laval, 1976 ( HTML version )

Web links

Commons : Abraham Pineo Gesner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Murray: Dr Abraham Gesner: the father of the petroleum industry. JR Soc. Med. 86, 1993 (see literature )
  2. ↑ Abraham Gesner (1756-1851). Doug Sinclair's private genealogy website.
  3. ^ Abraham Gesner: Remarks on the geology and mineralogy of Nova Scotia. Halifax 1836 ( archive.org )
  4. ↑ a b c d Russell: Gesner, Abraham. Dict. Can. Biogr. 9, 1976 (see literature )
  5. ^ AT Gesner: The Gesner Family of New York and Nova Scotia. 1912 (see literature ), p. 7
  6. ↑ a b A. T. Gesner: The Gesner Family of New York and Nova Scotia. 1912 (see literature ), pp. 11-14
  7. ↑ a b c d Randall F. Miller, Diane N. Buhay, Michelle Hébert: Specimen Collections from Abraham Gesner's Geological Survey of New Brunswick (1838 to 1842). Atlantic Geology. Vol. 48, 2012, pp. 86-96, doi: 10.4138 / atlgeol.2012.005
  8. ^ Abraham Gesner: First report on the geological survey of the province of New-Brunswick. Saint John (NB) 1839 ( HathiTrust )
  9. ^ Abraham Gesner: Second report on the geological survey of the province of New-Brunswick. Saint John (NB) 1840 ( HathiTrust )
  10. ^ Abraham Gesner: Third report on the geological survey of the province of New Brunswick. Saint John (NB) 1841 ( HathiTrust )
  11. ^ Abraham Gesner: Fourth report on the geological survey of the province of New-Brunswick. Saint John (NB) 1842 ( HathiTrust )
  12. ^ Abraham Gesner: Report on the geological survey of the province of New-Brunswick, with a topographical account of the public lands, and the districts explored in 1842. Saint John (NB) 1843 ( HathiTrust )
  13. ↑ George Frederic Matthew: Abraham Gesner - a review of his scientific work. Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick. Vol. 15, 1897, pp. 3-48 ( BHL ), pp. 47 f.
  14. ^ JH Calder: 'Coal Age Galapagos': Joggins and the Lions of Nineteenth Century Geology. Atlantic Geology, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2006, pp. 37-51, doi: 10.4138 / 2155
personal data
SURNAME Gesner, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gesner, Abraham Pineo (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian physician, chemist and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH Cornwallis Township , Nova Scotia, Canada
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1864
Place of death Halifax