Gustaf Eisen

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Gustaf Eisen (born August 2, 1847 in Stockholm , Sweden, † October 29, 1940 in Manhattan , New York , United States) was a Swedish naturalist and collector. He was a leading specialist in earthworm research in his day , founded the raisin industry in California , established the second oldest national park in the United States, and popularized what he believed to be the sacred chalice . He occasionally wrote his name as "Gustav Eisen" or "Gustavus A. Eisen".

youth

Gustaf came in 1847 as the son of the wholesaler Frans Eisen and his second wife Amalia, nee. Markander, to the world. The mother of his seven siblings had died long before that. The boy was ailing in his youth and was therefore sent by his parents to Gotland with a nanny at the age of eleven , where he spent the next five years. The teachers of the general educational institute in Visby - among them the cultural historian Pehr Arvid Säve (1811–1887) - praised Eisen in his autobiographical sketches in the highest terms. Eisen's father died in 1866, leaving him with a considerable fortune.

Eis's best friend on Gotland was Anton Stuxberg (1849–1902), who later became known through the Vega expedition . Together, the two wrote the essay "Contributions to Knowledge About Gotska Sandön ", which was published in 1868 by the Royal Academy of Sciences , despite the young age of the authors . To this day it is controversial whether they actually saw a white-backed woodpecker , as they state in it. The second book "Gotland's phanerogams and thallophytes , with localities for the rarer ones " followed in 1869 . It contains a list of all 957 plant species that were known on Gotland at that time.

Eisen had already met the later writer August Strindberg in elementary school, and after his return from Gotland they were schoolmates again at the higher education institution in Stockholm. In 1868 he graduated from high school. Then they went to Uppsala to study together . Together with another fellow student, Eisen supported Strindberg with a stipend of 25 kroner a month, with the two donors hiding behind a pseudonym. Strindberg portrayed Eisen in his book "From the Latin Quarter: Sketches from Swedish University Life" in a short narrative as "The Maverick".

Education

Eisen studied with the zoologist Vilhelm Lilljeborg and the botanist Thore Magnus Fries , among others . He was inspired to research earthworms by the Stockholm veterinary professor Hjalmar Kinberg (1820–1908), who also looked after the zoological collections of the Academy of Sciences. In 1870 he published the "Contributions to the Oligochaete Fauna of Scandinavia", in which he dealt with all earthworm species known at that time in Scandinavia. Gustaf Eisen was one of the first Darwinists in Scandinavia, and so he also sent his book to Charles Darwin (Darwin later quoted in his work " The formation of the soil through the activity of worms " Eisen's work on the earthworm systematics because there is corresponding work in English-speaking area did not exist).

In 1873 Eisen passed his exams in Uppsala and was immediately appointed lecturer in zoology. Sven Lovén , head of the invertebrate department at the Natural History Museum in Stockholm, saw iron as a possible successor. He organized a research trip for the young researcher to Boston to the famous Louis Agassiz and on to California. Agassiz was so enthusiastic about iron that he obliged him to collect not only for the Swedish researchers, but also for him. He provided him with the equipment for a two-year expedition that was shipped to San Francisco and on his return promised him a professorship at Harvard University . Arriving in California, Eisen was elected to the California Academy of Sciences , but had to learn that Agassiz had suddenly passed away. He first explored the then uninhabited Santa Catalina Island .

Contributions to California horticulture

In California he also met the later founder of anthropogeography, Friedrich Ratzel . In 1874 they both traveled to the Sierra Nevada for two months . Eisen had invested his entire legacy in the marine insurance company "Neptunus". When it went bankrupt, only a thousand crowns could be saved, and Gustaf Eisen suddenly found himself penniless. His half-brother Francis, who lived in California, put him on a farm near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley as an administrator. The Eisen brothers started with a few hectares of wine and a small alfalfa field, but by 1880 the farm already covered over 120 hectares with its own irrigation, a distillery and large orchards and produced 5000 hectoliters of wine. Eisen enjoyed experimenting with new plants and trying to grow tobacco before a friend gave him the idea of making raisins . To this end, he imported grapes from Australia that were suitable for raisin production, thus establishing an important branch of the California horticultural industry. He published his knowledge in 1890 in The Raisin Industry , which became the standard work. Other crops that iron introduced to California horticulture were the fig and the avocado . Later he bought his own land and started a tree nursery.

The creation of Sequoia National Park

Felling a sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park in the 1890s (colored image for magic lantern )

The sequoias , which stand in individual groups in the Sierra Nevada, were only discovered in 1852. Supporters of the Danish socialist Laurence Grønlund (1846–1899) wanted to buy land in this area and cut the trees. Eisen denounced the threat of deforestation in a lecture in front of the California Academy and worked out a plan for a reservation. On September 25, 1890, only a relatively small Sequoia National Park was established. Eisen intervened directly with US President Benjamin Harrison , who tripled the area a week later by decree. At Sequoia National Park is to the Yellowstone National Park to the second oldest national park in the United States.

In the 1890s, Eisen worked as a department head at the California Academy of Sciences . His only known relationship was with Alice Eastwood , the botany director, but both remained single. At the turn of the century, Eisen gave up his post and opened a photo studio in San Francisco . Eisen returned to Sweden twice more - in 1904 and 1906 - for a private visit. When the city burned down after the 1906 earthquake , Eisen lost its library, archive and correspondence. He himself was in Italy at the time.

Art historical work

The chalice that Eisen believed Jesus used at the Last Supper is now dated to the first half of the 6th century.

Eisen had already left his brother's winery in January 1882 and traveled to Guatemala , which he roamed - mostly on foot - for a year. The circumstances of this trip are unclear. Phoebe Hearst later fell for iron through his contacts in Guatemala when she wanted to build up a collection of Central American textiles. In 1902, Eisen traveled through Guatemala for another year on her behalf. Hearst was so satisfied with the result that she also supported his other projects up to the First World War.

From 1910, Eisen roamed Europe, where he lived in Rome for a long time. In April 1915 he returned to New York, where he was shown a peculiar silver goblet in an antique shop. The owner of the shop, Fahim Kouchakji , asked him to write an opinion on the chalice. After eight years, a seven-kilo book The Great Chalice of Antioch appeared , in which Eisen claimed to have discovered the Holy Chalice . The silver chalice is now kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art . In his old age, Eisen wrote books on glass objects up to the 16th century and on the portraits that have come down to us from George Washington . He spent the last years of his life in New York; his ashes are buried on Mount Eisen.

Organisms named after iron

Numerous organisms are named after iron, including the two genera Eisenia among brown algae (Areschoug 1876) and earthworms (Malm 1877; this includes the compost worm Eisenia fetida ). Over 50 species bear his name, including earthworms, mosquitoes, bees, ants, dragonflies, spiders, copepods, brown algae and a snake.

Publications (selection)

  • Gustaf Eisen and Anton Stuxberg: Gotlands Fanerogamer och Thallogamer, med fyndorter för de sällsyntare [German: Gotlands phanerogams and thallophytes, with locations for the rarer ones ]. Uppsala 1869.
  • Gustaf Eisen: Bidrag till Scandinavia's Oligochaetfauna [German: Contributions to the Oligochaetfauna of Scandinavia ]. PA Norstedt & Söner, Stockholm 1872/1874.
  • Gustav Eisen: The Raisin Industry. A Practical Treatise On The Raisin Grapes, Their History, Culture And Curing . HS Crocker, San Francisco 1890.
  • Gustav Eisen: The Fig: Its History, Culture, and Curing . United States Government Printing Office , Washington 1901.
  • Gustavus A. Eisen: Glass, its origin, history, chronology, technic and classification to the sixteenth century . William Edwin Rudge, New York 1927.
  • Gustavus A. Eisen: The Great Chalice of Antioch, on which are depicted in sculpture the earliest known Portraits of Christ, apostles and Evangelists . 2 volumes. Kouchakji Frères, New York 1928.
  • Gustavus A. Eisen: Portraits of Washington . 3 volumes. Robert Hamilton & Associates, New York 1932.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Eisen, Gustaf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eisen, Gustav; Eisen, Gustavus A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm , Sweden
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 1940
Place of death Manhattan , New York City, United States