Johann Georg Gmelin (discoverer)

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Johann Georg Gmelin, painting by Wolfgang Dietrich Majer , 1744, Gleimhaus Halberstadt

Johann Georg Gmelin ( Russian Иоганн Георг Гмелин ; born August 10, 1709 in Tübingen ; † May 20, 1755 ibid) was a German Siberian explorer and author of the Flora Sibirica . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ JGGmel. ".

Life

Johann Georg Gmelin, 1750

Johann Georg Gmelin came from a famous family of researchers from Württemberg ; he was a son of the pharmacist Johann Georg Gmelin the Elder (1674-1728) and his wife Barbara Haas (1687-1760). His father's chemical laboratory was to give him some inspiration for his later research life. At the age of 13 he became a student at the University of Tübingen , later completed his studies in medicine and natural sciences with honors and received his doctorate in 1728.

As a young scholar, he had already moved to Saint Petersburg , where he received a scholarship from the Russian Academy of Sciences, founded in 1724 . At the age of 22 he received the title of professor for chemistry and natural history in 1731 . In 1732 he applied to take part in the "Great Nordic Expedition" (1733–1743) and was selected by Tsarina Anna Ivanovna , along with the German Gerhard Friedrich Müller , professor and historian at the St. Petersburg Academy . In 1733 Gmelin went on the expedition with Müller and the French astronomer Louis De l'Isle . In addition to the three expedition leaders, six students, two painters, two hunters, two mountaineers, four surveyors, an officer, twelve soldiers, a drummer and a Pallas owl were on the move in a pine tree trunk .

It was a long and arduous but impressive journey to the Asian part of the Russian Empire. Gmelin's travel route led through the stations of Yaroslavl , Kazan , Tobolsk , Semipalatinsk , Ust-Kamenogorsk , Tomsk , Jenisseisk and Irkutsk to Yakutsk . A fire in the winter of 1736/37 destroyed most of the records and collections. A meeting with Vitus Bering turned out to be impracticable. Later returned Gmelin over Irkutsk, Tomsk, Verkhoturye and Veliky Ustyug and Schlüsselburg back to St. Petersburg. With the ten-year expedition he laid the foundation for the work Flora sibirica sive Historia plantarum sibiriae . Volumes 3 and 4 were published posthumously by his nephew Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin .

In 1747 he took a trip to Tübingen and, after the sudden death of a university professor, was appointed his successor in the fields of medicine, botany and chemistry. There he married Barbara Fromman in 1749 and had three sons with her; including Eberhard Gmelin . His great-nephew was the chemist Leopold Gmelin .

In 1751 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Gmelin died in 1755 at the age of only 45, possibly from the aftermath of his strenuous trip to Siberia.

Gmelin's botanical exhibits from Kamchatka today form the Kamchatka collection of the Herbarium Tubingense (TUB) of the University of Tübingen and are managed by the Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT .

Honors

The Dahurian larch bears its scientific name Larix gmelinii after Johann Georg Gmelin. The asteroid (13350) Gmelin was named after him in 2005. The plant genus Gmelina L. of the family Labiatae (Lamiaceae) is named after him.

Works

  • Voyage au Kamchatka par la Sibérie. Amsterdam 1779.
  • Joannis Georgii Gmelini Reliquias quae supersunt commercii epistolici cum Carolo Linnaeo, Alberto Hallero, Guilielmo Stellero et al., Floram Gmelini sibiricam ejusque Iter sibiricum potissimum concernentis. .. curavit Theodor Plieninger. Addita Autographa lapide impressa. Stuttgartiae 1861.
  • D. Johann Georg Gmelin's journey through Siberia, from the year 1733 to 1743. 4 volumes, Göttingen 1751–1752. New edition: Johann Georg Gmelin: Expedition into the unknown Siberia. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart 1999.
  • Life of Mr. Georg Wilhelm Stellers: been Adiuncti of the Kayserl. Frankfurt 1748.
  • Flora Sibirica: sive Historia plantarum Sibiriae. 4 volumes, Saint Petersburg 1747–1749.

Note: these books are available online at frontiers.loc.gov , for this purpose the search function on the website must be used, as deep links are not wanted there and are blocked

literature

Movie

Web links

Commons : Johann Georg Gmelin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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, Volume 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Series 3, volume 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 93.
  2. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
personal data
SURNAME Gmelin, Johann Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Siberian explorer
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1709
PLACE OF BIRTH Tübingen
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1755
Place of death Tübingen