Friedrich Adolph Roemer

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Monument to Friedrich Adolph Roemers
Roman monument (1907)

Friedrich Adolph Roemer (born April 14, 1809 in Hildesheim , † November 25, 1869 in Clausthal ) was a German geologist , botanist and lawyer. He served as Bergrat the mountain school Clausthal and converted it into the Mining Academy at Clausthal, the later the Technical University of Clausthal was. Its botanical author's abbreviation is “ A.Roem. ".

Life

Adolph Roemer was the eldest son of the Judicial and Tribunal Councilor Christian Friedrich Römer and his wife Charlotte Lünzel. He had seven younger siblings, including the brothers Hermann Roemer and Ferdinand von Roemer . When he was eleven years old, his father died. His mother then lived with her children in modest economic circumstances. However, she managed to enable three of her four sons to attend university. Before that, Adolph attended the Andreanum grammar school in Hildesheim. In 1828 he went to the University of Göttingen to law study. He also enrolled in the natural sciences and studied botany with Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling . Roemer then studied at the University of Berlin . In November 1831 he went as an official auditor (trainee lawyer) to the tax forest-Marienburg office , where he was appointed official assessor after three years of training and a state examination . His duties in the Royal Hanoverian State Service included, among other things, the exercise of royal rights, the implementation of ordinances in the police, church and school system and the collection of indirect taxes.

In addition to his professional activities, he began to be interested in paleontology and to investigate the Jurassic layer sequences in the Hildesheim area. He was in contact with his brother Hermann, who studied geology in Göttingen, among other things, and with the geologist Friedrich August von Quenstedt . Furthermore, he continued his education with works that he borrowed from the libraries of Göttingen and Hanover. In 1836 and 1839 he published the description of the north German Jura and described hundreds of new fossils. In 1841 a description of the North German chalk layers followed , based on the description of more than 800 fossils. He coined stratigraphic terms like Hilston or Serpulit .

In 1840 Roemer was transferred to Bovenden . From there he undertook his first hikes in the Harz Mountains . He was probably also inspired by the report published in 1840 by the two British geologists Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick , who had stratigraphically described various low mountain ranges in Europe. From his notes it can be seen that he migrated the entire northern Vorharz from Seesen and Gandersheim to Blankenburg and Halberstadt in order to describe and classify the most important outcrops. In 1843 he described the paleozonic units of the Harz in Die Versteinerungen des Harzgebirge, but drew various wrong conclusions, which were criticized by Fridolin Sandberger in the 1845 Yearbook for Mineralogy. In later publications Roemer corrected these errors.

During his hikes through the Harz Mountains, Roemer made contacts in Clausthal , where the Royal Mountain and Forestry School, the kingdom's only mining training facility, had a good reputation. Families from all over northern Germany and even from England and the Netherlands sent their sons who were to take up leading mining professions to be trained in Clausthal. Roemer asked for his transfer and from April 1, 1843, he became an official assessor at the mining office in Clausthal. The "civil litigation matters" in Altenau , Wildemann and Lautenthal were transferred to him. He also had the duties of mayor in Wildemann and Lautenthal. Since his salary was insufficient to finance his scientific work, Roemer also took on secondary employment.

Roemer turned first to the mosses and algae of the environment, which he collected and determined. He determined which species occurred up to which altitude and published Die Alga Deutschlands in 1845 . From 1843 to 1850 he also published a number of communications in the New Yearbook of Mineralogy .

From the fall of 1846 Roemer began to give lectures in the subjects of mineralogy and geognosy at the mountain school. He also directed the mineralogical collection and expanded it into a scientific institution. He quickly built a reputation for science. Among his students were some who later became professors of geology. One of them, Joseph Grailich , described a hitherto unknown iron sulfate mineral, which was named Römerite at his suggestion . From Monday to Wednesday he carried out his official business activities in the office building and the neighboring cities and from Thursday to Saturday he taught.

In 1847 Roemer traveled to France and Italy from July to October, where he visited the French chalk regions, among other places. In 1849, at his request, he was exempted from court activities, instead he became one of two members of the treasury and accounting commission at the mining and forestry office. He continued to exercise the function of mayor in Wildemann and Lautenthal. From 1851 he gave up the commission work, his teaching duties at the mountain school became more numerous and now also included legal encyclopedia and mining law. In 1852 a new city order came into force, which meant that Wildemann and Lautenthal lost their full-time mayors and Roemer could devote himself exclusively to his teaching and research activities. In 1853 the director of the mountain school, Johann Christian Zimmermann , who had been in office from 1811 until his death, died. Roemer was temporarily put in charge of the school.

Reforms

He found only limited access to Clausthal society, on the one hand because he was probably not looking for him intensively, on the other hand Georg Müller describes the structures as a "dense mountain official felt", which Romans would only have had a chance to penetrate if he had married one of their daughters . Roemer developed friendships with the Osthaus and Schuster families, and to a lesser extent with Hermann Koch, the father of Robert Koch , who was Bergrat in Clausthal.

In 1865 the Ernst August tunnel , a water solution tunnel, was completed after 16 years of construction. This meant an enormous step forward in terms of energy generation and drainage of the pits. Roemer was involved in the preparations for the inauguration ceremony and was obliged to enter the new tunnel on August 3rd for official reasons.

Friedrich Adolph Roemer died in 1869 at the age of 60 from the effects of ascites , after having been restricted by gout and rheumatism for several years and therefore asked for his retirement in 1867. He was buried in Clausthal-Zellerfeld's old cemetery.

Honors and memberships

Friedrich Adolph Roemer was a member of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . In 1864 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

  • In 1850 he was made an honorary member of the Nassau Association for Natural History .
  • In 1858 the mineral Römerit was named after him.
  • In 1924 Clausthal and Zellerfeld were merged into one town, which meant that some street names were assigned twice. The Goslarsche Strasse in Clausthal was therefore renamed "Adolph-Roemer-Strasse".

Fonts

  • The petrifications of the North German Oolithen Mountains , Hahn, Hanover 1836, google books
  • The fossils of the North German Oolithen Mountains. An addendum , Hahn, Hannover 1839, google books
  • The Petrifications of the North German Chalk Mountains, 136 pages, 16 plates. Hahn, Hanover 1841. google books
  • The Petrifications of the Harz Mountains, 60 pages, 12 panels. Hahn, Hanover 1843 google books
  • Die Alga Deutschlands , Hahn, Hannover 1845 google books
  • The Polyparians of the North German Tertiary Mountains , Theodor Fischer, Cassel 1863 google books

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Friedrich Adolph Roemer  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LIBRAIRIE ALAIN BRIEUX. Jean-Bernard Gillot. Sciences - Techniques - Médecine ( Memento des Originals of March 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (French, PDF 3.4 MB; p. 31)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alainbrieux.com
  2. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of Friedrich Adolph Roemer
  3. ↑ Members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors 1857
  4. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 204.
  5. ↑ Handbook of Mineralogy - Römerite (English, PDF 68.3 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Roemer, Friedrich Adolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roemer, Adolph; A. Roem. (botanical author abbreviation)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Hildesheim
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1869
Place of death Clausthal