Karl Rouillier
Karl Franzowitsch Rouillier ( Russian Карл Францович Рулье , also Karl Frantsovich Rule; born April 20, 1814 in Nizhny Novgorod , † April 21, 1858 in Moscow ) was a Russian geologist, zoologist and paleontologist .
Life
Rouillier was the son of a French man who settled in Russia as a shoemaker. From 1829 to 1833 he studied at the Moscow Academy of Medicine and Surgery and was then a military doctor until 1840. Then he was professor of zoology at Lomonosov University and from 1840 to 1851 secretary of the Moscow Society of Natural Scientists.
His studies in the 1840s concerned the Jurassic, Carboniferous and Quaternary deposits in the Moscow Basin and its stratigraphy. In doing so, he recognized the existence of two separate fauna communities in the Upper Jura near Moscow. Early (1841) he advocated gradual, slow changes in living things, as reflected in the fossil record. As a zoologist he was influenced by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire . But he deviated from Lamarck's teaching in important points, for example, in contrast to Lamarck, he postulated the extinction of species and he also rejected an instinct for perfection inherent in organisms. In his writings he emphasized the competition between species without, however, arriving at Charles Darwin's concept of natural selection .
As a zoologist, he studied bird migration and fish migrations, changes in phenotype in domestication, and the nature and origin of instincts.
Throughout his career he has faced disabilities and work difficulties from government agencies. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 44.
Fonts
- Selected biological writings by Rouillier were edited in Moscow in 1954 by SR Mikulinsky and LS Davitashvili
- About the fauna of the Moscow governorate and their changes in the individual epochs of earth formation. In: Archives for Scientific Customer of Russia. 5, 1847, pp. 443-482.
- with A. Vosinsky Etudes progressives sur la paleontologie des environs de Moscou. In: Bulletin de la Société impériale de naturalistes de Moscou. 20, 1847, pp. 371-447.
- with A. Vosinsky Etudes progressives sur la geologie de Moscou. In: Bulletin de la Société impériale de naturalistes de Moscou. 21, 1848, 263-268 and 22, 1849, pp. 3-17, 337-399.
- Explication de la coupe geologique des environs de Moscou. In: Terrain jurassique de Moscou. 1844, ( archive.org ).
literature
- SR Mikulinsky in Dictionary of Scientific Biography ( encyclopedia.com )
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rouillier, Karl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rule, Karl Franzowitsch; Рулье, Карл Францович (Russian spelling) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Russian geologist and paleontologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 20, 1814 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nizhny Novgorod |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 21, 1858 |
| Place of death | Moscow |