Johann Samuel Miller

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Johann Samuel Miller , also John Samuel Miller, originally Müller, (born February 26, 1779 in Danzig ; † May 24, 1830 ) was a German-British paleontologist and zoologist in Bristol .

Life

Miller emigrated to England in 1801. He worked in Bristol as an accountant and had access to large collections of fossils or brought them together.

He wrote books and treatises on fossil sea lilies ( Crinoidea ) and belemnites . His monograph on sea lilies, which he printed at his own expense, dealt with both recent and fossil species and used new lithographs for the illustrations at the time. Leading English geologists such as William Buckland and George Bellas Greenough , but also Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in Göttingen, were among the subscribers to his book . His treatise on belemnites was presented to the Geological Society in 1823 by paleontologist and geologist William Daniel Conybeare , and thanks to Conybeare's mediation, he also became the first museum curator at the Bristol Institution in 1823.

His reconstruction of the functional anatomy of belemnites was very similar to today's ideas. Soon after, Blainville in Paris also independently published a treatise on belemnites with their reconstruction in the modern sense.

Miller was a member of the Linnean Society of London and an honorary member of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.

He first described the sea lily Seirocrinus subangularis , the Swabian head of Medusa .

Fonts

  • A natural history of the Crinoidea, or lily-shaped animals: with observations on the genera, Asteria, Euryale, Comatula & Marsupites, Bristol 1821 ( digitalisat )
  • A list of the freshwater and landshells occurring in the environment of Bristol, 1822
  • Observations on Belemnites, Transactions of the Geological Society, 2 (1), 1826, pp. 45-62

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Rudwick, Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform. 2008, p. 51ff
  2. ↑ Honorary Members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society (PDF file)
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Johann Samuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müller, Johann Samuel (maiden name); Miller, John Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British paleontologist and malacologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1779
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1830
Place of death Bristol