Ferdinand Schalch

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Ferdinand Schalch (born January 11, 1848 in Schaffhausen , † November 19, 1918 in Küsnacht ) was a Swiss geologist , paleontologist , cartographer , secret mountain ridge , collector and patron .

Education

Title page of one of his explanatory reports, Section Geyer

Ferdinand Schalch was born in Schaffhausen in the Rosengasse in the former orphanage that was built on the site of the former St. Blasier office and which his father ran. After attending grammar school in Schaffhausen, he studied at the Zurich Polytechnic from 1865 , where Arnold Escher von der Linth and Oswald Heer were among his teachers . He graduated with a diploma and thus became a specialist teacher for natural sciences. From 1869 to 1870 he studied at the Universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg and submitted a dissertation under Fridolin Sandberger : Contributions to the knowledge of the Triassic in the southeastern Black Forest . In the winter of 1869 he worked in Robert Bunsen's laboratory . From 1871 he mapped the area around Schaffhausen and is a teacher in Böckten and Trogen , but his teaching activity was not satisfactory, so that from 1875 he worked as a geologist in Göschenen building the Gotthard railway . In 1876 he was appointed to Saxony by Hermann Credner , where he was employed as a section geologist at the Saxon State Geological Survey until 1889 . Here he carried out geological surveys in the region of the Ore Mountains and in northwest Saxony. This resulted in 13 geological maps with explanations. He also went on excursions to Thuringia (Gera) and to Bohemia in the Prague basin .

In Baden service

In 1888 Harry Rosenbusch was appointed director of the Grand Ducal Baden Geological State Institute (today the State Office for Geology, Raw Materials and Mining Baden-Württemberg ) and appointed Ferdinand Schalch and Adolf Sauer . From 1889 to 1918, Schalch was a regional geologist in Baden. In this activity he produced 16 geological sheets of the Black Forest and Klettgau and prepared expert reports. He wrote a few specialist papers and always collected minerals and fossils. His collection includes minerals from the old mining areas of the Ore Mountains and the Black Forest as well as fossils from the Klettgau, Randen , Aargau , Baselland and Hegau , as well as outcrops that are no longer accessible today , such as the Öhningen quarries. He had acquired beautiful pieces from quarry workers and other collectors. In 1902, Schalch was named a secret mountain ridge. In 1907 he made a trip to France and England. In 1908 he received the Zähringer Lion Order and on the occasion of his retirement in 1918 the oak leaves. After that he wanted to devote himself entirely to the order and care of his minerals and fossil collection, but the circumstances after the First World War and his weakening strength no longer allowed him. He went to a boarding house in Küssnacht, where he voluntarily passed away in severe depression. He bequeathed his extensive collection to the city of Schaffhausen, which housed it in the museum created in 1938, which, however, was badly damaged by a bomb hit on April 1, 1944. Many helpers were able to recover this collection from the rubble. Today it is exhibited and stored in the All Saints Museum.

Fonts

  • Contributions to the knowledge of the Triassic in the south-eastern Black Forest. Inaugural Diss. University of Würzburg, printing and publishing company of the Brodtmann'schen Buchhandlung, Schaffhausen 1873

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. Rudolf Schlatter, Schalch Collection, p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Schalch, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss geologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaffhausen
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1918
Place of death Küsnacht