John Jeremiah Bigsby
John Jeremiah Bigsby (born August 14, 1792 in Nottingham , † February 10, 1881 in London ) was a British doctor , paleontologist and geologist and pioneer of geological exploration of Canada .
Life
Bigsby studied medicine in Edinburgh with a degree as MD in 1814. He then became a surgeon in the British Army, was with this in 1817 at the Cape of Good Hope and from 1818 in Quebec in Canada . There he began to deal with the geology of the country , also on an official basis . From 1820 he was a member of the Canadian border commission to the USA. He published the geological knowledge he gained in the area of the Saint Lawrence River and the Great Lakes in the American Journal of Science, and Arts and in 1823 in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London , of which he became a fellow in the same year.
In late 1826, disappointed by the Canadian government's little interest in geological research, he returned to England and settled as a doctor in Newark-on-Trent . He was there between 1827 and 1830 Alderman and Mayor and from 1840 senior physician at Newark Hospital.
In 1846 he moved to London and devoted himself to science. He published about the geology of Canada and a catalog of fossils of the Silurian , where another on the Devon / carbon followed (a band on the Perm remained at his death unfinished).
He became a Fellow of the Royal Society (1874) and in 1874 received the Murchison Medal . He donated the Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society of London for research into American geology in 1877.
In 1825 he became a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. George Mercer Dawson named Bigsby Inlet near the Queen Charlotte Islands in his honor .
Fonts
- The shoe and the canoe. 2 volumes, 1850 (about his experiences in Canada)
- On the utility and design of the science of geology. In: Canadian Review and Literary and Historical Journal. Volume 1, 1824/25, pp. 377–395 (published anonymously)
- Notes on the geography and geology of Lake Huron. In: Transactions of the Geological Society. 2nd series, Volume 1, 1824, pp. 175-209
- Thesaurus Siluricus. London 1868
- Thesaurus Devonico-Carboniferous. London 1878
Web links
- Anthony W. Rasporich: Bigsby, John Jeremiah. In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . Volume 11, 1982
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bigsby, John Jeremiah |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 14, 1792 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nottingham |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 10, 1881 |
| Place of death | London |