David Friedrich Wiser

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David Friedrich Wiser
David Friedrich Wiser in the 1870s

David Friedrich Wiser (born May 6, 1802 in Zurich ; † March 22, 1878 ibid) was a Swiss merchant and mineralogist .

life and work

David Friedrich Wiser-Vögeli was the son of the Zurich iron merchant Johann David Wiser (1759–1840) and Susanna Wiser née von Schmid. Around 1821 he did business and language training in Lyon . From 1827 to 1836 he ran the iron shop Wiser (today Pestalozzi + Co ) as a partner with his father and stepbrother Heinrich Wiser-Balber (1787–1879 ). He lived in the house "zur Farb", Münsterhof 12 , in Zurich, which his father had bought in 1825 and to which the iron shop gradually moved by 1891.

After leaving the company for health reasons, he worked as a private scholar and self-taught with minerals. He made annual trips to the Alps, mainly to areas along the Gotthard Road, which was built around 1830 . He maintained close contact with emitters , which he could induce not only to search for rock crystals , but also to collect the remaining crystallized minerals. From 1838 to 1872 he regularly published the sites he became aware of in the New Yearbook for Mineralogy . He was a member of the Zurich Natural Research Society for 49 years .

With his finds, he built up a mineralogical collection that was later integrated into the mineralogical collection of ETH Zurich . His approximately 8,000 objects in the collection are exquisite samples, crystallographically or paragenetically excellent specimens, each of which he had precisely labeled and described for himself. He used in particular the solder tube sample and the angle measurements with a goniometer or by cutting out the crystal angles to be measured in cardboard strips that he attached to the objects. When he got stuck , he consulted his friend Arnold Escher from Linth . The material collected by him and other mineralogists formed the basis for research at that time.

The private scholar's apartment and collection room on the 2nd floor above the iron shop at Münsterhof 12

Through his studies and publications there was a lively exchange with domestic and foreign mineralogists who visited his collection while passing through Zurich. He played a decisive role in Zurich becoming a well-known research center for Swiss minerals in the second third of the 19th century.

The University of Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate Dr. phil. hc The mineral wiserite was named after him.

Scientific publications

  • 1838 to 1872: New yearbook for mineralogy, geognosy, geology and petrefacts . KC von Leonhard, HG Bronn (Ed.)
  • 1840 to 1846: News about Swiss minerals
  • 1861 to 1868: Minerals of Switzerland
  • 1862: Quarterly publication of the Natural Research Society in Zurich , edited by R. Wolf
  • David Friedrich Wiser: About the minerals occurring in the iron pits at Gonzen near Sargans in the canton of St. Gallen, along with a few comments with mixed contents . In: New yearbook for mineralogy, geognosy, geology and petrefacts customer . Year 1842, 1842, p. 505-527 ( rruff.info [PDF; 761 kB ; accessed on November 5, 2018]).

literature

Web links

Commons : David Friedrich Wiser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Grubenmann: Dr. David Friedrich Wiser (1802-1878). Life picture of a Zurich mineralogist. In: New Year's Gazette of the Natural Research Society in Zurich. Beer publishing house, Zurich 1918.
  2. ↑ Anke Fossgreen: Sparkling, bizarre crystals. In: Tages-Anzeiger . August 23, 2016 (Zurich Mineral Collection).
  3. ^ Paul Niggli: Mineralogy and Petrography. In: Quarterly publication of the Natural Research Society in Zurich. 1946, pp. 190-206 (PDF; 1.23 MB).
  4. ↑ Willfried Th. Epprecht, Waldemar T. Schaller, Angelina C. Vlisidis: About wiserite, sussexite and another mineral from the manganese ores from Gonzen (near Sargans). In: Swiss mineralogical and petrographic communications. Vol. 39, Issue 1–2, 1959 (archived in E-Periodica of the ETH Zurich ).
  5. ↑ Wiserit. In: Mineralienatlas .
  6. ^ Wilhelm von Gümbel:  Wiser, David Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 538.
personal data
SURNAME Wiser, David Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1878
Place of death Zurich