Carl Hermann Muller

Carl Hermann Müller (born February 22, 1823 in Leisnig ; † May 10, 1907 in Freiberg ) was a German geologist and mineral explorer who mainly worked in the Saxon ore mining. He created a large number of gait studies and is known in specialist circles as a gait miller .

Live and act

The son of the Leisnig city school teacher Gottlieb Benjamin Müller took an early interest in geology and collected minerals . After attending the Thomas-Gymnasium in Leipzig , Müller studied at the Bergakademie Freiberg from 1841 to 1845 . He was mainly influenced by Karl Gustav Adalbert von Weissenbach and Johann Carl Freiesleben . In 1842 Müller was one of the founders of the Corps Saxo-Borussia Freiberg . After completing his studies, Müller completed a year of mining internship at the royal mine Churprinz Friedrich August Erbstolln in Großschirma near Freiberg.

In September 1846, on behalf of Bernhard von Cotta , Müller began gait studies in all of Saxony's ore districts. In doing so, he examined in particular the influence of the host rock on the ore flow and then classified the host rock in various grades in the "Müllerian series". Another focus of his investigations were the gneisses, whose eruptive origin he recognized.

At the end of 1851, Müller got a job as an assessor at the Mining Authority in Schneeberg . During this time his investigation into the Schneeberger silver-cobalt field was carried out. At the same time he investigated the slate deposits in neighboring Lößnitz and was also entrusted with investigations in the slate quarry areas of Wurzbach and Gräfenthal on behalf of the local slate producers.

In 1853, Müller also moved to the Freiberg Mining Authority as an assessor, where he was also appointed a member of the gait investigation commission. For this commission he made a special geognostic survey of the Freiberg district as a Freiberg corridor map on a scale of 1: 1200. In addition to the scientific and geological investigations, Müller was also entrusted with technical and administrative matters.

In 1855 he married in Freiberg, and the marriage resulted in three daughters.

In 1856, Müller was appointed vice senior driver in Freiberg, and two years later he took up the post of senior driver . In 1861 he turned down an appointment as professor at the Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe . In addition to ore deposits, his geological investigations in Saxony also included lime deposits, rock salt deposits and salt springs . The relationships he studied between veins and mineral springs became one of the foundations of thermal theory . Furthermore, Müller examined nickel-cobalt deposits near Gladhammar in Norway as well as other deposits in Lower Silesia, Spain and Thuringia. On behalf of the Russian Tsar, Müller examined the ore storage sites on his property in the Urals in 1865 and in 1868 on behalf of the Austrian Emperor ore veins of St. Joachimsthal in Bohemia .

After the reform of the Saxon mining administration, Müller became a technical member of the Freiberg Mining Authority responsible for all of Saxony from 1869 and worked as a consultant in the office of a miner, from 1873 then with the title of miner's council. After the death of Oberbergrat Ernst Rudolph von Warnsdorff , Müller also took over the management of the state choir prince Friedrich August Erbstolln in Großschirma in 1871 , aid for the treasure trove in Halsbrücke and the Rothschönberger tunnel, which is currently under construction . In 1874, Müller asked in vain for his dismissal as administrator of the last large tunnel construction in Saxony due to overload and in order to fulfill his mining official duties, whereby he tried to force the tunnel excavation by dynamite blasting. In 1873 he was appointed to the Mining Authority and five years later to the Oberbergrat. After the breakthrough in 1877 , Müller was released from the administration of the Rothschönberger Stolln the following year. He also managed the mines Churprinz Friedrich August Erbstolln and Aid Fundgrube until 1878.

On May 12, 1877, Müller became a member of the Kgl. Saxon Geological State Institute, where he prepared the work plan for the investigation of the ore deposits on behalf of Hermann Credner . In the special geological map of Saxony published by the Geological State Institute on a scale of 1: 25,000, Müller was responsible for entering all ore veins and deposits as well as their detailed geological and mining history descriptions in the explanatory booklets for the individual sheets. To do this, he drove, sometimes at risk of death, the pits of the Saxon ore mining areas. Until 1880, Müller also participated in the work of the gait investigation commission.

At the age of 78, Müller retired in January 1901, receiving the title of Secret Mountain Ridge. His wife died in 1906. In 1907, shortly before his death, the Bergakademie made him its first honorary doctorate .

Carl Hermann Müller died on May 10, 1907 in Freiberg. He was buried in the Donatsfriedhof .

Honors

• Commander's Cross 2nd class of the Royal Saxon Order of Albrecht
• Saxon Order of Merit, 1st class, for completing the Rothschönberger Stolln (awarded in 1877)
• Dr.-Ing. E. h. of the Bergakademie Freiberg (appointed in 1907)

Fonts

• The ore veins of the Freiberg mining district - Leipzig 1901 (for this folder with 5 plates).

Although Müller was considered the most important gang geologist in Saxony during his lifetime, he did not publish a lot of knowledge under his name. Müller is the author of the descriptions of the Saxon ore districts published by the Saxon Geological State Institute in the explanations of the special geological map of Saxony and was also responsible for drawing the districts and corridors in the individual sheets on a scale of 1: 25,000.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Freiberg Mountain Archive. Existing 40026 Stolln administration of the fiscal Rothschönberger Stolln
2. ↑ Historical personalities. A selection of well-known scholars and students related to Freiberg and the Bergakademie , accessed on May 8, 2016.

literature

• anonymous: Obituary for Hermann Müller . Yearbook for mining and metallurgy in the Kingdom of Saxony. Born in 1907, Freiberg, p. 9–16 ( digitized version of the entire yearbook; PDF; 20.9 MB )
• Richard Beck : Hermann Müller. Obituary . Journal of Practical Geology, June / July 1907, pp. 169–174 ( digitized version ) (US proxy)
• Heinz Meixner:  Müller, Karl Herrmann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 445 ( digitized version ).
• Carl Schiffner : From the life of old Freiberg mountain students . Verlag E. Mauckisch, Freiberg 1935, pp. 35-37.
• Angela Kießling, Susanne Scholze: Carl Herrmann Müller 1823–1907 and his scientific legacy. A bibliographical compilation of his estate . TU Bergakad. Freiberg, Univ.-Bibl. "Georgius Agricola", Freiberg 2008 (68 pages).

Web links

• Literature by and about Carl Hermann Müller in the catalog of the German National Library