Johann Samuel von Gruner

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Johann Samuel von Gruner, pen sketch by Klara Reinhart, around 1800.

Johann Samuel Gruner or Grouner (* 27. February 1766 in Murten , † 31 January 1824 in Traubing ) was a Swiss geologist patrician origin, in the Old Bern headed mines and in the Helvetic Republic , the offices of the National Book printer and the upper mountain captain held. After the dissolution of the revolutionary unitary state by Bonaparte , he emigrated to Bavaria , where he worked as a knowledge mediator in the fields of cartography and agriculture . As a Bavarian captain , he founded military geology .

Life

Carte du gouvernement d'Aigle, 1788.

Gruner came from a non-ruling family of the Bernese patriciate . His parents were the businessman Niklaus Gruner (1725–1771) and the pastor's daughter Rosina nee Sybold († 1785). After the early death of his father, he received Emanuel Friedrich Fischer (1732–1811) as guardian, who is considered the main initiator of the Typographical Society Bern and was a member of the Small Council of the Salt Directorate. After attending grammar school in Bern, Gruner did an internship in the salt mine of Bex (now the canton of Vaud ) in 1784/85 . There he found a second father in Mining Captain Franz Samuel Wild (1743–1802). For Wild's Essai sur la montagne salifère du gouvernement d'Aigle , he reduced the Carte du gouvernement d'Aigle by Isaac-Gamaliel de Rovéréa (see illustration).

Disciple of Abraham Gottlob Werner

Abraham Gottlob Werner.

Bern granted him three annual scholarships for further training . In 1786 he stayed in Göttingen and Leipzig . In 1787 he enrolled with the mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) at the Bergakademie Freiberg ( Saxony ), where he studied until 1789. Among his fellow students were James Watt jun. and Alexander von Humboldt . Werner called him “one of my most excellent students and especially a good geognostic ”. Humboldt attested his tremendous knowledge, but referred to him - because of Gruner's advocacy of the French Revolution ? - as "hideous people". In Göttingen he made “a friendship that went too far” with his relative Johann Rudolf Meyer (1768–1825) from Aarau , with whom he corresponded from 1790 onwards. He spent a total of six years of study in Germany.

Head of the Trachsellauenen and Küttigen mines

Trachsellauenen mine, 1790.

In 1792 Gruner returned to Bern. From there he moved to Meyer in Aarau. He participated in the mapping projects in Switzerland that Meyer's father financed. He later described himself as "the main initiator and multiple contributor to the production of the Meyeric relief and atlas of Switzerland". He is also likely to have advised his friend on the construction of the Meyer's tunnels , which supplied his silk dye factory with water. He and Meyer put their mineral collections and libraries together in the vain hope of being able to exchange them for a professorship for him at the Bern Academy . In 1793 he became head of the Trachsellauenen lead mine at the foot of the Jungfrau , in which Meyer's father was involved. The geologist Hans Konrad Escher (1767–1823), with whom he went on a trip to the Alps that year, wrote: “In addition to his scientific knowledge, Gruner spoke to me with his lively spirit, his liberal principles and cozy openness, so that we soon became intimate friends However, through which I became known with his intense passion, his whims and principles about the religious and moral conditions among the people, which did not agree with my principles about this. ”As the court master of Meyer's brother Henri, Gruner undertook a study trip to the salt pans in 1794 Bavaria , Salzburg and the Salzkammergut . Then he became director of the Bernese iron mine in Küttigen near Aarau, for whose management he received praise from Escher.

National printer and chief miner

In 1798 Gruner took part in the Helvetic Revolution. As a result, he was together with Heinrich Gessner national printer of the Helvetic Republic. In 1799 he accompanied the French General Lecourbe with the rank of major when he prevented the Russian Field Marshal Suworow from passing through the Alps, and in 1800 the French geologist Dolomieu on his last trip in the Alps. In 1799/1800 Meyer and Gruner, who became a member of the Helvetian mine management in the first year mentioned, tried to maintain the operation of the Küttigen mine, but they then ceded it to the state. In 1801 they founded the canton school in Aarau, which opened the following year. The school was headed by the first editorial secretary of the Helvetian government, Georg Franz Hofmann . During the counter-revolution of 1802 ( Stecklikkrieg ), Gruner fled to nearby countries with Heinrich Zschokke . At the end of the same year he succeeded Wild as chief miner of the Helvetic Republic.

Emigration to Bavaria

When Bonaparte transformed the unified Swiss state back into an aristocratic union in 1803 , Gruner lost his position. Again he moved to Meyer. His family transferred their silk ribbon factory and their assets to Bavaria , where they bought the dissolved monasteries Geisenfeld and Wolnzach in 1803 . Gruner supported Meyer's brother Hieronymus in the administration of these goods. In 1804, he made it possible for the Meyer family to exchange them for the Polling , Rottenbuch and Steingaden monasteries . In 1805 his daughter Marie, about whom nothing more is known, married the widowed Meyer. On this occasion Gruner bought four Schwaigen (cattle breeding farms) from his friend , which he then leased to him. But in 1807 Meyer was deposed as administrator of the Bavarian property by his father and returned to Aarau. Before that, Marie must have died and his friendship with Gruner broken. Because Meyer stopped paying the rent, Gruner brought a lawsuit against him in 1808, which only ended with a settlement in 1816.

Mediator of Fraunhofer's teacher Guinand

Étienne-Ovide Domon: Pierre-Louis Guinand .

In Bavaria, Gruner influenced the cartographer Alois von Coulon (1779–1855) and the relief builder Franz Joseph Weiss (1784–1825) in the spirit of the Meyer's school.

In 1804 he had the optician Pierre-Louis Guinand (1748–1824) from Les Brenets in today's canton of Neuchâtel to send glass samples and a memorandum to Utzschneider . Guinand produced streak-free flint glass in pieces of unprecedented size. As a result, Utzschneider associated with Reichenbach and Liebherr to manufacture surveying instruments. Gruner called the Mathematical-Mechanical Institute his child. Utzschneider was brought together with Guinand by him and Zschokke in Aarau. Then he bought the Benediktbeuern monastery . After another meeting in Les Brenets, he signed the Swiss man. In 1805/06 he built in Benediktbeuern "what was then the only hut in the world for optical glass". Guinand trained Joseph Fraunhofer (1787–1826) in glass making. But soon he was subordinate to the brilliant optician. Humiliated, he returned home in 1814. As a glassmaker, however, the student did not surpass him. While Fraunhofer only produced for its own use, Guinand began supplying Paris in 1818. Later his relatives and successors dominated the world market. Utzschneider tried in vain to darken Guinand's fame.

According to Zschokke, who held the office of forest and mountain council in Aargau , Gruner was "indisputably the most experienced and most knowledgeable in mining among all Swiss people". The Salzburg mining expert Karl von Moll attested to him: “Only a few have observed so carefully and so carefully; only a few combine so much acuteness and such a tendency to introduce the fruits of mineralogical knowledge into practical life. ”Bavaria failed to offer Gruner a position in his specialist field. In 1807 he was granted the concession to resume the discontinued mining of pitch coal on the Peissenberg , but not the necessary capital.

Founder of military geology

1814, the now 47-year-old Gruner commanded as captain that Volunteers Battalion of the Iller circle . He made friends with Lieutenant Johann Andreas Schmeller (1785-1852). He had lived in Switzerland as a student of Pestalozzi . The forerunner of his Bavarian dictionary was the attempt at a Swiss Idiotikon by Franz Joseph Stalder . Gruner introduced Schmeller to the method of working with paper boxes . In the decisive battle against Napoleon , the two took part in the stage . Gruner remained an active officer, but was increasingly released for scientific work. With the sketch about the relationship between geognosy and war science , which he wrote between 1816 and 1820 for the later Chief of Staff Clemens von Raglovich , he founded military geology. His 1817 essay on the influence of geognosy on maps and reliefs may have been commissioned by the same client . In the last year mentioned Gruner married the sister-in-law of his legal representative Mittermaier , Klara Regina von Walther widowed von Pallhausen (1780–1821) - according to Schmeller, who was the best man, "a saint in every, but not in the priestly sense".

Co-founder of the Agricultural Association

Johann Samuel von Gruner: Model Swiss-style economic building.

Gruner played a key role in founding the Agricultural Association in Baiern . In 1810 he became a member of the first general committee (from which, however, he resigned the following year by drawing lots), in 1812 of the deputation for agricultural construction. He was a pioneer of the agricultural revolution and advocated the introduction of the Swiss Brown Cattle and the preparation of manure invented in the canton of Zurich . Schmeller once mocked that his friend found “the salvation of the world in manure and liquid manure is not wrong”. From 1820 Gruner belonged to the deputation for the improvement of agriculture and the functional beautification of the Bavarian country . In 1821 he designed a model economic building in the Swiss style (see illustration). The committee of the Agricultural Association, which examined it, proposed him for an award by the king, which, however, did not take place. For this, when his wife died that same year, he received a scholarship for an agricultural study trip to the Netherlands . He spent a year in Brabant and Holland . His notes from this trip were published posthumously .

Accident or murder?

The imminent accession to the throne of the reactionary Ludwig I let Gruner make plans to emigrate to America . He went to Paris again to buy land in Kentucky on behalf of his friend Hans Kaspar Brunner . But before the 57-year-old could realize the plans mentioned, he was killed on the journey from Munich to his property. The cause was a car accident, the circumstances of which aroused the suspicion in Schmeller that Gruner had been murdered. According to Moll, the deceased left behind a - now lost - "Schaz of handwritten notes and extremely strange essays on all kinds of objects in the natural sciences, mechanics and technics of every kind, agriculture".

Works

  • Gruner (1788): Carte du Gouvernement d'Aigle, levée topographiquement par Mr. de Rovéréa, père, et réduit (e) par Mr. J. Sam. Grouner. Appendix to Franz Samuel Wild: Essai sur la montagne salifère du gouvernement d'Aigle, Genève 1788.
  • Gruner (1805): From two older letters from Mr. Joh. Sam. Gruner, former Helvetic chief miner, currently in Munich. In: Carl Erenbert Freiherr von Moll (editor), Efemeriden der Berg- und Metallkunde, 1. Volume, 1./2. Delivery, Munich 1805, pp. 203-209.
  • Gruner (1814): Some remarks about the small meadow waterings from water ponds. In: Weekly newspaper of the agricultural association in Baiern, January 18, 1814, pp. 241–249, fig.
  • Gruner (1814a): Excerpts from remarks on the Rhineland oil presses. Ibid, May 18, 1814, pp. 525-529.
  • Gruner (1817): Invention of a Gyps litter cart. There, June 17, 1817, pp. 610–621, fig.
  • Gruner (1820): Some remarks about the polytechnic association. In: Art and trade sheet of the polytechnic association for the Kingdom of Bavaria, 6./9. December 1820, columns 807-812, 815-818.
  • Gruner (1820a): Some remarks about large, especially Schweitzer cattle. In: Weekly newspaper of the agricultural association in Baiern, December 19, 1820, columns 201-206.
  • Gruner (1821): About the preparation of warm fodder in Switzerland. There, February 20, 1821, columns 346-349.
  • Gruner (1821a): Potato cultivation, taking into account the rapid turnover of manure capital. There, April 10, 1821, columns 429-433.
  • Gruner (1821b): A few words about the lime mortar. Supplement to the monthly newspaper for the improvement of agriculture and for the practical beautification of the Baierisches Land , April 28, 1821.
  • Gruner (1821c): About the sticking of the seed grain. In: Weekly newspaper of the agricultural association in Baiern, May 8, 1821, columns 481–492.
  • Gruner (1825): About the influence of geognosy on land maps and reliefs. In: Carl Erenbert Freiherr von Moll (editor), New Jar Books of Mining and Metallurgy, Volume 6, 1st Delivery, Nuremberg 1825, pp. 129–135.
  • Gruner (1826): Relationship between geognosy and war science, a sketch. Ebendort, 6th volume, 2nd delivery, Nuremberg 1826, pp. 187–233.
  • Gruner (1826a): Swiss cattle. In: Economic News and Negotiations, Volume 31, Prague 1826, pp. 134 f.
  • Gruner (1826 f.): Description of a journey through the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was made at the instigation of the agricultural association in Bavaria by Samuel von Grouner, former chief miner, written by C (arl) W (ilhelm) Wimmer. 2 parts, Passau 1826 f. (18 lithographs).
  • Gruner (1828): Samuel von Grouner's stable and barn building in the Swiss style. In: Weekly newspaper of the agricultural association in Bavaria, 9./16. December 1828, columns 245–250, 264–268, fig.

Works falsely attributed to Gruner

  • ( Heinrich Zschokke :) About the mines of the Canton of Aargau. In: Isis, July 1805, pp. 636-654.
  • ( Johann Rudolf Meyer :) Geognostic overview of the Helvetian mountain formations. In: Isis, October 1805, pp. 857-878, 1121.

literature

  • Z .: About the manure preparation. In: Economic News and Negotiations, Volume 2, Prague 1823, pp. 721–726.
  • Auction of the (...) book collection (...) of the v. Grouner. Munich 1824. Bavarian State Library Munich, Cat. 266 p (loss).
  • Auction of the considerable map collection of the deceased Captain v. Grouner. Munich 1824.
  • Rudolf Wolf: Biographies on the cultural history of Switzerland. 2. Cyclus, Zurich 1859, p. 274 f./notes. 16 (Gruner), pp. 299-308 (Guinand).
  • Johann Andreas Schmeller: Diaries 1801–1852. Published by Paul Ruf, 1st volume, Munich 1954.
  • Gerhard Heyl: Johann Andreas Schmeller first lieutenant in the volunteer hunter battalion of the Illerkreis 1814/15. In: Dieter Albrecht / Dirk Götschmann (eds.), Research on Bavarian History, Festschrift for Wilhelm Volkert on his 65th birthday, Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 197-218.
  • Hermann Häusler / Ewald Kohler: The Swiss geologist, chief miner and major Johann Samuel Gruner (1766-1824) - founder of military geology. In: Minaria Helvetica, 23a / 2003, pp. 47-102.
  • Peter Genner: From Aarau to Bavaria. Emigration and decline of the Meyer entrepreneurial family. In: Aarauer Neujahrsblätter, 2011, pp. 36–69, 2012, pp. 97–143.
  • Peter Genner: After the rule of the monastery - Swiss revolutionaries in the Pfaffenwinkel . In: Der Welf, yearbook of the historical association Schongau - Stadt und Land 2013, pp. 69–192 ( digitized version http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.academia.edu%2F27650986%2FAfter_dem_End_der_Klosterherrschaft_Schweizer_Revolution%C3%A4re_im_Pfaffenwinkel%3D%3D%3D~IA%3ZD%3D%3D%3D~IA%3D%3D~MD 3D ~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D).

Web links

Commons : Johann Samuel von Gruner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Bern's patriciate had given itself the title of nobility in 1783 . Gruner made no use of this during the Helvetic Republic.
  2. ↑ Gruner himself used the French form of the name.
  3. ↑ Gruner is only closely related to the author of the Eisgebirge des Schweizerlandes (1760), Gottlieb Sigmund Gruner (1717–1779), as well as to the later geologists of this name (Häusler / Kohler, Fig. 1).
  4. ↑ Fischer presided over the Salt Management 1786–1789.
  5. ↑ Abraham Gottlob Werner: New theory of the origin of the courses. Freiberg 1791, p. 253.
  6. ↑ Alexander von Humboldt's letters from young people, 1787–1799. Edited by Ilse Jahn / Fritz G. Lange, Berlin 1973, p. 220 f.
  7. ↑ Wolf, p. 275 (allusion to the later trial between Gruner and Meyer?).
  8. ↑ Meyer's stepmother Marianne Renner, like Gruner's grandmother Katharina Schmalz, the first wife of his grandfather, Anna Renner, and Gruner's godfather Johann Rudolf Renner came from Nidau .
  9. ↑ Gruner (1826), p. 189 f.
  10. ↑ ( Hans Konrad Escher :) Message from the Bernese mine near Trachsel-Lauinen in Lauterbrunnenthal, in Johann Conrad Fäsi (Ed.): Library of Swiss Political Science , Geography and Literature, 2nd year, 2nd item, Zurich 1797, p 117-131, here: p. 124; the same: Materials on a natural-historical-technical history of mining at Trachsellauinen  (...), in: Alpina, Volume 2, Winterthur 1807, pp. 236–324, with plan, here: pp. 266 ff.
  11. ^ The personal life report of Hans Conrad Escher von der Linth. Edited by Gustav Solar , Part 2, (Mollis 1998), p. 554.
  12. ↑ Compare Gruner (1805).
  13. ↑ (Hans Konrad Escher :) About the Bernese iron mine in the Aarauer Erzberge  (...), o. O. u. J., Bayerische Staatsbibliothek ( digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Freader.digitale-sammlungen.de%2Fde%2Ffs1%2Fobject%2Fdisplay%2Fbsb10292806_00001.html~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~ SZ% 3D ~ double-sided% 3D ~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D version), unpag.
  14. ↑ Son of Salomon Gessner and son-in-law of Wieland .
  15. ↑ Gruner (1826), pp. 189, 227, 231; Häusler / Kohler, Fig. 11.
  16. ^ Tønnes Christian Bruun-Neergaard: Journal du dernier voyage du C (itoy) en Dolomieu dans les Alpes. Paris an X - 1802, pp. 103-105, 121, 124 f.
  17. ↑ According to the text Feyerliche Opening of the Cantonal School in Aarau, (Aarau) 1802, p. 33, it was Gruner, "who designed the first idea and plan for the establishment of the Cantonal School and put it into practice".
  18. ^ Heinrich Zschokke: A self-review. 1. Theil, Aarau 1842, p. 223.
  19. ↑ Compare Marie's only surviving letter, addressed to her father-in-law and dated Polling , October 27, 1805 (Aarau City Archives, Meyer estate).
  20. ↑ Goss Hofen, Haarsee and Rothsee (Kloster polling), shield Schwaig (Klosterrotte book).
  21. ↑ Compare ( Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier :) Legal representation of the true disputes of JS Samuel Gruner, Switzerland. Oberberghauptmanns, as a plaintiff against Rudolph Meyer from Aarau. (Munich) 1810; Joseph von Speckner: Presentation of the case pending at the Royal Higher Appeal Court of Baiern between the House of Maier zu Aarau, and the title Samuel Gruner (...) . Munich 1812.
  22. ↑ Gruner (1825), pp. 133-135.
  23. ↑ Guinand invented the homogenization process, which is named after him Guinandage .
  24. ↑ Wolf, p. 302 / note. 5 (1821).
  25. ↑ (Ernst Voit :) 1815-1915. Hundred years of technical inventions and creations in Bavaria. Munich / Berlin 1922, p. 14 (January 28, 1805).
  26. ^ Moritz von Rohr: Joseph Fraunhofer's life. Leipzig 1929, p. 148.
  27. ↑ Joseph von Utzschneider: Brief outline of the life story of Dr. Joseph from Fraunhofer. Munich 1826, p. 5 f .; Explanation of the royal. go. Rathes J. v. Utzschneider, against some statements in the Bibliothèque universelle and the Globe, about the production of flint glass. In: Supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung, January 25, 1829, p. 99 f.
  28. ↑ emigration. In: Isis, October 1805, pp. 925–928, quotation: p. 928.
  29. ↑ Gruner (1805), p. 203 / note.
  30. ↑ Compare Heyl.
  31. ↑ Schmeller, p. 294 f.
  32. ↑ According to Wolf, p. 274 / note. 16, Gruner was introduced by Humboldt to the scientific luminaries in Paris.
  33. ↑ Gruner (1826), p. 190.
  34. ↑ Gruner (1825).
  35. ^ Sister of Philipp Franz von Walther .
  36. ↑ In return, Gruner took over the guardianship of Schmeller's illegitimate daughter Emma.
  37. ↑ Schmeller, p. 432.
  38. ↑ Gruner (1820a), Gruner (1826a).
  39. ↑ Schmeller, p. 356.
  40. ↑ Gruner (1828), column 268.
  41. ↑ Gruner (1826 f.).
  42. ↑ Brunner, who came from Zurich , was chief accountant at the toll management.
  43. ↑ Schmeller, pp. 494-498.
  44. ↑ Gruner (1826), pp. 187 f./notes.
personal data
SURNAME Gruner, Johann Samuel von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grouner, Johann Samuel von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss geologist and knowledge broker in Bavaria
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Murten
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1824
Place of death Traubing