Georg Christian Füchsel

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Memorial stone to Georg Christian Füchsel in front of the Heidecksburg in Rudolstadt.

Georg Christian Füchsel (born February 14, 1722 in Ilmenau ; † June 20, 1773 in Rudolstadt ) was a German geologist and doctor in Rudolstadt. Together with Johann Gottlob Lehmann, he is considered to be a co-founder of stratigraphy .

Life

Füchsel grew up in Ilmenau and from 1727 in Rudolstadt, where he attended the Fridericianum high school, graduating in 1741. He then studied medicine in Jena and from 1744 in Leipzig. In 1751 he is attested in Rudolstadt, from 1756 as a doctor and from 1757 as a physician . He was also the personal physician of Friedrich Karl , who, like Füchsel, was interested in natural sciences. He taught him and looked after his natural history cabinet. In 1760 he became a member of the Academy of Non-Profit Science in Erfurt and came into contact with scholars such as Johann Wilhelm Baumer , Christoph Andreas Mangold and Johann Samuel Schröter . In 1762 he received his doctorate in medicine in Erfurt, paying for the costs through a geological report. In 1767 he became court doctor in Rudolstadt and in 1772 royal librarian. He was never married and was in financial straits all his life. He was a freemason.

In 1762 Füchsel drew the first geological map of a German area (Thuringia, within a radius of around 30 km around Rudolstadt) and, according to Wiefel, of a larger area in general. It is drawn in a bird's eye view with a view from the southeast, which emphasizes the formations three-dimensionally. He was also the first to use the term shell limestone , at that time still in the form of “shell limestone”. Other formations of the Triassic appear with him, the Sandgebürge (parts of the middle Buntsandstein ) and the Gypsgebürge (upper Buntsandstein). His work, which appeared in the Erfurt Academy in 1761, was unfortunately incorrectly translated into Latin with many printing errors, which was detrimental to its influence (Wiefel), for example, this prevented Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from studying it in more detail. An improved German edition was not made due to his poverty and death. Schröter printed a review with misprint corrections in 1775.

Lehmann had a greater direct influence than Füchsel, but Füchsel had a more differentiated view and continued its Permian layer sequence (Rotliegend, Zechstein) into the Triassic up to the Muschelkalk ( he did not yet know Keuper ). In contrast to Lehmann, he saw not only one deluge, but several floods, and differentiated between terrestrial and marine deposits.

With him there are approaches of actualism (before James Hutton and Charles Lyell ) and the concept of facies .

A street in Ilmenau is named after him.

Fonts

  • Draft for the oldest earth and human history, along with an attempt to find the origin of the language. o. V., Frankfurt and Leipzig 1773. ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )
  • Historia terrae et maris, ex historia Thuringiae, per montium descriptionem. Actorum Academiae electoralis Moguntinae, 2, Erfurt 1761, pp. 44–208 (German translation: History of the land and the sea, determined from the history of Thuringia by describing the mountains)
  • Usus historiae suae terrae et maris. Actorum Academiae electoralis Moguntinae, 2, 1761, pp. 209-254,

literature

  • Carl Wilhelm von Gümbel :  Füchsel, Georg Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1878, p. 175.
  • Rudolf Möller:  Füchsel, Georg Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , pp. 684 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Rudolf Möller: Communications on the biography of Georg Christian Füchsel . German publishing house for basic industry, Leipzig 1963 (Freiberg research books; D 43)
  • Siegfried Rein: Georg Christian Füchsel (1722-1773) - an actualist discovers the depths of geological history, Vernate, Volume 28, 2009, pp. 11-30, abstract
  • Heinz Wiefel: Georg Christian Füchsel (1722-1773) - His services to early Triassic research , in: Norbert Hauschke, Volker Wilde (ed.): Trias- a whole different world , F. Pfeil Verlag, Munich 1999, p. 577-580

Web links

Commons : Georg Christian Füchsel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Füchsel: The way in which nature works today and produces bodies is ... to be taken as the norm , cited from Hölder's Brief History of Geology and Palaeontology , Springer 1989, p. 33
personal data
SURNAME Füchsel, Georg Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fuchselius, Georg Christian; Fuchselius, Georgius Christianus; Fvchselivs, Georg. Christian.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Ilmenau
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1773
Place of death Rudolstadt