Karl Caesar von Leonhard

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Karl Caesar Leonhard, lithograph by Rudolf Hoffmann , 1857

Karl Cäsar Ritter von Leonhard , also Carl Cäsar , (born September 12, 1779 in Rumpenheim , † January 23, 1862 in Heidelberg ) was a German mineralogist .

Life

Origin and education

Leonhard lost his parents early. His mother Susanne (1741–1792) was the daughter of Jacques Cesar Godeffroy (1706–1758) . She died in 1792. His father Johann Conrad Leonhard (1745–1794) was in the service of Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel . Karl Caesar Leonhard received only a moderate school education, but was ambitious and completed his knowledge so that higher education became possible. In 1797 he started studying camera studies at the University of Marburg , which he continued at the University of Göttingen .

Professional career

Starting a career he won in 1801 with a job as assessor in the country Tax Directorate Hanau in the Hesse-Kassel belonging Hanau-Münzenberg . The Landgraviate, which was elevated to the status of the Electorate of Hesse in 1803 , was destroyed in 1806 by Napoleon , who initially had the County of Hanau administered by the military, but ultimately added it to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt . The civil servant Leonhard was taken over with the change of rule and made a career in the process: in 1809 he became chamber councilor and advisor for the mines. A year later, Grand Duke Karl Theodor von Dalberg appointed him head of the domain administration of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, and in 1813 he became General Inspector and Privy Councilor. But in the same year the Napoleonic empire fell. On 30./31. October 1813 the battle of Hanau took place at the gates of the city . Leonhard was an eyewitness to the event and wrote a detailed experience report about it, which was published several times. In the course of the radical restoration by Elector Wilhelm I , all officials were downgraded to the level they had when the electoral state collapsed: Leonhard found himself as an assessor.

This disappointing political development made it easy for him to move to Bavaria in 1815 . King Maximilian I , who met Leonhard in Hanau, offered him a position at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , of which he became a foreign member in 1818. Leonhard did not get used to the way of life there and the customs in the “Cabal Empire”, as he called Munich , and so in 1818 he accepted a call from the Baden State Minister Sigismund von Reitzenstein to the newly established chair for mineralogy at the University of Heidelberg . He was appointed Privy Councilor of the Grand Ducal.

family

In 1802 he married. Since it was now very much a question of his income, he had to give up the plan to continue his studies at the Bergakademie Freiberg . Von Leonhard was the father of the geologist Gustav von Leonhard .

Scientific career

Under the influence of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , he became increasingly concerned with mineralogy and began collecting minerals . He corresponded with Leopold von Buch , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Abraham Gottlob Werner , Alexander von Humboldt and Johann Karl Wilhelm Voigt on mineralogical topics and studied their works.

In 1805 his first important work appeared, the handbook of general topographical mineralogy . In the basalt dispute , Leonhard represented Werner's theory of Neptunism . It was only later, around 1808, that investigations on the basalt prompted him to move to the plutonists' camp .

Several trips took him to Saxony, the Thuringian states, the Alps and the Salzkammergut . There he got to know Friedrich Mohs and Karl Maria Ehrenbert von Moll .

Together with Ernst Karl Friedrich Merz and Johann Heinrich Kopp , Leonhard developed the systematic tabular overview and characteristics of the mineral bodies published in 1806 .

In 1808 Leonhard was one of the founders of the Wetterau Society for All Natural History in Hanau , along with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

The paperback he edited between 1807 and 1829 for the entire mineralogy appeared from 1830 in joint editing with Heinrich Georg Bronn under the new title Yearbook for Mineralogy, Geognosy and Petrefactenkunde . From 1833 until their death in 1862, Leonhard and Bronn continued their joint work as the New Yearbook for Mineralogy, Geognosy and Petrefactology .

In 1817 his mineralogical textbook " Propädeutik der Mineralogie " was published, in which a text passage on the cassiterite deposits is printed, which comes from the pen of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

In 1823 he introduced the term “ loess ” or loess into geological-mineralogical literature. The location he described scientifically for the first time as loess digestion, the Haarlass in Heidelberg , has since been considered the locus classicus et typicus .

In addition to specialist publications and an autobiography, Leonhard also wrote smaller fiction writings. In 1806 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1858 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . Since 1811 he was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .

Works

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  • Manual of General Topographical Mineralogy , 1805
  • Leonhard / Merz / Kopp: Systematic-tabular overview and characteristics of the mineral bodies. In oryctognostic and orological terms . JC Hermann, Frankfurt am Main 1806
  • Paperback for the entire mineralogy , 1807–1829
  • General Repertory of Mineralogy , 1811–1821
  • Leonhard / Jassoy: Form relationships and groupings of the mountains , 1812
  • Leonhard / Selb: Mineralogical Studies , 1812
  • Historical representation of the Battle of Hanau on October 30, 1813 . 1st edition 1813 (anonymous); 2nd edition: 1814; 3rd edition 1913; ND: In: Napoleon's last Bataille - eyewitness report of the battle of Hanau on October 30th and 31st, 1813. By Carl Caesar Leonhard = ND n. D. 3rd edition from 1913. Hanau 2013. ISBN 978-3-935395-18-2
  • Leonhard / Kopp / Gärtner: Propaedeutics of Minerals , 1817
  • Thought on Werner , 1817 (Nekrolog for AG Werner )
  • Natural history of the volcanoes , 1818
  • Handbuch der Oryctognosie , 2 ed. 1822, 1826
  • Characteristics of the rock types , 1823–1824
  • Geology or natural history of the earth , 5 volumes, 1833–1844
  • Paperback for Friends of Geology , 3 volumes, 1845–1847
  • From Our Time in My Life , 2 volumes, 1854–1856
  • Tourist book for Heidelberg and the surrounding area : with woodcuts, printed lithographs and a map, printed and published by Karl Groos, Heidelberg 1834 ( digitized version )

Reviews

  • To Carl Caesar von Leonhard; Karl Friedrich Merz; Johann Heinrich Kopp: Systematic-tabular overview and characteristics of the mineral bodies . Frankfurt am Main: Hermann 1806, in Allgemeine Literaturzeitung , Volume 1, Number 62, Year 1808, see pages 491–494 digitized version
  • To manual of a general topographical mineralogy . Vol. 1., Frankfurt am Main, Hermann, 1805 in Allgemeine Literaturzeitung , Volume 3, Number 278, Volume 1808, see pages 318-320 digitized version
  • To paperback for the entire mineralogy . With regard to the latest discoveries. Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main, Hermann, 1807, in Allgemeine Literaturzeitung , Volume 2, Number 289, Volume 1808, see pages 1068-1072 digitized version
  • On the historical account of the battle near Hanau on October 30, 1813 , Hanau, 1813, in Allgemeine Literaturzeitung , Volume 1, Number 38, Year 1814, see page 304 digitized version
  • For a few words about my mineral collection , Hanau, 1814, in Allgemeine Literaturzeitung , volume 2, number 179, year 1814, see pages 651–654 digitized

Honors

literature

chronologically

Portraits

  • Secret advice Dr. Carl Caesar von Leonhard, Professor of Mineralogy and Geology (painted for the Antiquities Hall of Count von Graimberg in 1843 after life) Lithograph, 16.9 cm, 25.4 cm (sheet) (Heidelberg, University Library, Graph. Coll . P_0131)
  • Karl Caesar von Leonhard, teacher of mineralogy at the University of Heidelberg , copper engraving by Friedrich Fleischmann (1791–1834), after (a drawing by) Jakob Wilhelm Roux , printed by J. Engelmann, Heidelberg, W 29 cm, H 43 cm ( Sheet) undated, around 1820 (Heidelberg, University Library, Graph. Coll. P_0133)
  • Dr. KC v. Leonhard, Professor of Mineralogy and Geognosy , copperplate engraving by Friedrich Rosmaesler (around 1775–1858) after Jakob Wilhelm Roux from the gallery of the most excellent doctors and natural scientists in Germany , ed. by [F.] Rosmaesler. J. Perthes in Comm., Gotha 1831, 19.4 cm, 26.2 cm (sheet), (Heidelberg, University Library, Graph. Slg.P_0132)
  • facsimile signature, Rud. Hoffmann, after a photograph by (Heinrich?) Schubert, printed by J. Haller, Verlag George André Lenoir, Vienna, from the series "excellent natural scientist"

Web links

Wikisource: Karl Caesar von Leonhard  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Briefly, p. 6.
  2. ↑ Briefly, p. 8.
  3. ↑ See: Bibliography.
  4. ^ Carl Friedrich Philipp Martius : Carl Cäsar Ritter von Leonhard (obituary) . In: Meeting reports of the royal. Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich . tape 1 , 1862, p. 327–328 ( online [PDF; accessed March 4, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Briefly, p. 6.
  6. ↑ Johannes Baier: Goethe and the Kassiterit von Schlaggenwald (Horní Slavkov; Czech Republic). - Z. geol. Wiss., 41/42, 267-273; Berlin, 2013/14 ( summary )
  7. ^ Loess, Loess online at Duden
  8. ↑ Materials on the Bergstrasse-Odenwald Geo-Nature Park
  9. ↑ 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, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 149.
  10. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Karl Caesar Leonhard. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed September 30, 2015 (Russian).
  11. ↑ Mindat - Leonhardite (English)
personal data
SURNAME Leonhard, Karl Caesar from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leonhard, Karl Caesar Ritter von; Leonhard, Carl Caesar von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1779
PLACE OF BIRTH Rumpenheim
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1862
Place of death Heidelberg