Arnold Henri Guyot
Arnold Henri Guyot (born September 28, 1807 in Boudevilliers near Neuchâtel , Switzerland ; † February 8, 1884 in Princeton , USA ) was a Swiss-American naturalist and geographer .
Even in his youth he was collecting plants and insects. He studied at the University of Neuchatel theology and alongside natural history . In 1825 he continued his studies in Karlsruhe . Here he lived with a Braun family, where he met Louis Agassiz (1807–1873).
Guyot moved to Berlin to prepare for a ministry. Here, however, he decided to give up theology in favor of the natural sciences. He attended lectures by Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter . In 1835 he finished his studies with a dissertation on the natural classification of lakes. Guyot went to Paris and became tutor to the sons of the Comte de Pourtalès from a noble family connected with Neuchâtel. This position gave him the opportunity to travel extensively across Europe.
In 1838 he met Agassiz again in Paris and the acquaintance turned into a lifelong friendship. On the advice of his mentor, Guyot explored alpine glaciers the following summer and made important discoveries that he was able to present to the Geological Society of France in 1838 thanks to Agassiz. In 1839 he went back to Switzerland and received a professorship for history and physical geography in Neuchâtel . From 1840 to 1847 he examined erratic blocks in Switzerland. The revolution of 1848 hampered work at the academy, so he went to America with Agassiz. In Boston he gave lectures on comparative physical geography. In 1849 he published his lecture "Earth and Man". In 1854 he was appointed professor of physical geography and geology at Princeton .
In 1856 he built a museum from his collections, which has now become the Princeton Museum of Natural History . He set up meteorological stations for the Smithsonian Institution and laid down precise instructions for them. They formed the nucleus of today's US Weather Service ( United States Weather Bureau ). By 1881 he carried out a topographical survey of the Appalachians from Vermont to the Catskills .
In his honor were several mountains ( Mount Guyot - in the North Carolina-Tennessee Line in the Great Smoky Mountains , in the White Mountains of New Hampshire , in the Colorado Rockies ), a glacier in Alaska ( Guyot Glacier ), a lunar crater ( Guyot Crater ) as well as the undersea peaks / mountains with flat plateau ridges in the Pacific ( Guyot ). Guyot was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1849), the American Philosophical Society (1867) and a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences .
Works
- Earth and Man , Boston, 1849
- On the Topography of the State of New York , American J. of Science, 8, 272-276, 1852
- On the Appalachian Mountain Region , American J. of Science, 19, 429-451, 1880
- A Memoir of Louis Agassiz 1883
Web links
- Jean-Paul Schaer / MS: Guyot, Arnold. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter G. (PDF; 931 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved September 18, 2018 .
- ^ Member History: Arnold Guyot. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 18, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Guyot, Arnold Henri |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Guyot, Arnold Henry |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss-American naturalist and geographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 28, 1807 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boudevilliers |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 8, 1884 |
| Place of death | Princeton |