Ernst Heinrich von Dechen

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Ernst Heinrich von Dechen
von Dechens Geognostic Map, Section Aachen (excerpt)

Ernst Heinrich Carl von Dechen , called Heinrich, (born March 25, 1800 in Berlin , † February 15, 1889 in Bonn ) was a professor of mining , geologist and inventor .

Life

He studied at the Bergakademie in Berlin from 1818 and was initially a mountain trainee from 1821, continued his training in the mining offices in Bochum and Essen and at the Ministry of Mining in Berlin, traveled to Scotland and England in 1826/27 and became Oberbergrat in Berlin in 1831.

Dechen was professor of mining science at the University of Berlin from 1834 to 1841 .

He was 1841-1864 chief mining and head of the upper mountain the Office in Bonn and at the service of the company founded in 1834 Eschweiler mine association he EBV, for which 1847 to 1857 the central drainage pit for to 1891 in operation pit Centrum in Eschweiler district pump stitch build let. The shaft was named "Heinrichsschacht" in his honor.

In 1880 he had new water supply systems built, including in the city of Aachen . He also made a living in coal mining on the Saar and in building early railways. In 1864 he left the civil service as a real secret councilor to devote himself to the creation of a geological map of the Rhineland and Westphalia. He was commissioned to do this in 1855; By 1884 he produced 35 sheets on a scale of 1: 80,000. The result of these decades of work was the first geological map of a larger contiguous area in West Germany. He had already started working on this as a trainee lawyer in Berlin in 1825.

In 1850 he was a member of the Volkshaus of the Erfurt Union Parliament .

From 1847 until his death he was chairman of the Natural History Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia in Bonn. He was a member of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors and was elected a member of the Leopoldina in 1854 . Since May 31, 1887, he was a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences .

From 1861 at the latest, he lived in a villa on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn, which was probably built according to a design by Christian von der Emden and was demolished in 1952 for the Collegium Albertinum .

From 1838 to 1855 he edited the archive for mineralogy, geognosy, mining and metallurgy with CJB Karsten .

In 1852 he first described loess in the Siebengebirge .

family

His father was the privy councilor Theodor von Dechen (1768-1826). His mother was his wife Elisabeth Martinet (1773-1859), daughter of the Berlin watchmaker Augustin Martinet (1742-1812). His brother Theodor von Dechen (1794-1860) was a Prussian major general.

Ernst Heinrich von Dechen married Luise Gerhard (* March 7, 1799; † August 11, 1838), daughter of the Prussian chief miner and head of mining, metallurgy and salt works Johann Carl Ludewig Gerhard (1768-1835) and Ernestine Friederike Scharlow in 1828 . Dechen and his wife had a son and three daughters:

  • Sophie Henriette Caroline (born September 16, 1831; † August 5, 1864) ⚭ June 16, 1862 Albert von Viebahn (born January 7, 1822) master builder in Soest
  • Elisabeth (born November 29, 1833) ⚭ 1859 Max von dem Borne (1826–1894) fish farming pioneer
  • Ernestine Henriette Caroline (June 18, 1837 - June 22, 1850)
  • Theodor Ludwig Gerhard (born July 25, 1838 - † March 27, 1869) court assessor

Publications

  • Geognostic outlines of the Rhineland (with von Öynhausen and Laroche, Berl. 1825, 2 vols.);
  • Geognostic map of the Rhineland (with the same, that. 1825);
  • Geognostic overview map of Germany, England, France and the neighboring countries (das. 1839, 2nd revision 1869);
  • The feldspar porphyries in the Lenne areas and the occurrence of the Rotheisenstein and the associated mountain species in the area of ​​Brilon (1845);
  • Collection of height measurements in the Rhine Province (Bonn 1852);
  • Geognostic guides to the Siebengebirge (the. 1852, 2nd edition 1861), to the volcanic series of the Vordereifel (the. 1861, 2nd edition. 1885), to the Laacher See (the. 1864);
  • The usable minerals and mountain types in the German Empire (Berl. 1873).

Dechen also led the official geognostic investigation of the Rhine province and Westphalia, as a result of which the geological map appeared in 34 sections from 1855 to 1865, with explanations (Bonn 1870–84, 2 vols.).

On behalf of the German Geological Society, he published the geological map of Germany (Berl. 1869, 2 sheets, with text).

Honors

Monument to Heinrich von Dechen in Koenigswinter

The city of Aachen granted him honorary citizenship in 1880 because of his inventions and the preservation of the city's thermal springs . In 1869 he became an honorary member of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg . In 1881 he was made an honorary member of the Nassau Association for Natural History .

In 1898 Eschweiler named the path leading to the "Heinrichsschacht" near the Eschweiler Stadtwald (now a street) "Heinrichsweg" in his honor. At the request of the Eschweiler Mining Association, in 1902 the "Heinrichsallee" in the Eschweiler miners' settlement "Colonie Wilhelmine zu Stich" was named after him. In 1996 a section of the "Heinrichsweg" is renamed "Am Heinrichsschacht", which means that Dechen has given three street names to a municipality.

In Bonn, in the western part of the city, the "Dechenstraße" was named after him, which forms a short connection between Baumschulallee and its parallel street, Quantiusstraße.

In Neunkirchen in Saarland a mine bore his name. The Dechen mine was located southwest of Neunkirchen, in the Heinitz district , and was at least temporarily an independent mine.

Because of his services as a consultant in the construction of the Eifelbahn , its tunnel at Kyllburg was called Dechen-Tunnel .

The Dechen Cave in Iserlohn (northern Sauerland ) also bears its name in honor of Dechen, who has made such outstanding contributions to the geology of Rhineland-Westphalia. He was one of numerous naturalists who visited the cave after it was discovered by two railway workers.

On May 25, 1892, a seven meter high monument made of Drachenfels trachyte was erected for him in Königswinter , halfway between the Hirschburg and the Drachenfels . A bronze relief is set in, showing his bust in profile. It was built by the Beautification Association for the Siebengebirge (VVS), whose first chairman was von Dechen from April 9, 1870 until his death.

In 1935, the Natural History Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia changed the name of the association magazine, which had been published since the middle of the 19th century, to Decheniana in his honor .

In 1935 the lunar crater Dechen was named after him. The mineral Vondechenit and several types of fossils are named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ernst Heinrich von Dechen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Quarterly magazine of the Astronomical Society  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors 1857
  2. ↑ Heinrich von Dechen's membership entry at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on August 30, 2016.
  3. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter D. Académie des sciences, accessed on February 9, 2020 (French).
  4. ^ Wagenbreth, History of Geology in Germany, Springer 2014, 152
  5. ^ Honorary members of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg
  6. ^ Address book Federal City of Bonn 2000/2001, p. IV-26.
  7. ^ Dechenstrasse in the Bonn street cadastre
  8. ^ Oberbergrat W. Serlo, Bonn: Bergmannsfamilien. XI. in Glückauf of November 10, 1928, (Dechen p. 1517–1519, Tunnel p. 1519)
  9. ↑ naturhistorischerverein.de: On the history of the association.
  10. ↑ Mineralienatlas WiKi: "Vondechenit"
personal data
SURNAME Dechen, Ernst Heinrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dechen, Ernst Heinrich Carl von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mining expert and geologist, professor and chief miner
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1889
Place of death Bonn