Ludwig Meyn

Ludwig Meyn. He was also welcomed by his friends Dr. Called wisdom .

Claus Christian Ludewig (Ludwig) Meyn (born October 1, 1820 in Pinneberg ; † November 4, 1878 in Uetersen ) was a German agricultural scientist , soil scientist , geologist , journalist , mineralogist and member of the peasant class in the Holstein assembly of estates . He was the pioneer in oil production .

Life

Meyn was the son of the general practitioner Adolf Meyn and later professor and director of the Clinical Institute of the University of Kiel and from 1826 attended the community school in Pinneberg. After moving to Kiel, he began studying natural sciences in Berlin in 1840, where he also assisted the chemist Richard Felix Marchand . As a private lecturer for rock and soil science, he taught at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and at the same time worked as a teacher of natural sciences at the Kiel high school . There he was also committed to promoting nature and local history.

Ludwig Meyn's grave in Cäcilie-Bleeker-Park in Uetersen

His aim was to research the soil structure in his home country and to disseminate the research results. He taught his students the importance of agricultural chemistry founded by Justus von Liebig . He wanted to make clear to his compatriots, who were skeptical of all innovations, of the need to use carefully considered artificial fertilization to restore the nutrients that the harvested fruit had withdrawn from it. Meyn lived mainly in Uetersen, where he stood up for socially disadvantaged citizens. He was a co-founder and financier of the hospital in Uetersen (Bleeker-Stift).

Meyn was also a member of the peasant class in the Holstein assembly of estates .

On November 4, 1878, he died of a stroke that he suffered on a business trip to Hamburg.

His name today

The Ludwig-Meyn-Gymnasium in Uetersen was later named after him. Because of his merits, the journal "Meyniana" of the Geological-Paleontological Institute in Kiel was named after him in 1952. A street on the campus of the University of Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Straße, where the Geology Department is located, also bears his name. Streets in Pinneberg , Halstenbek , Elmshorn and Uetersen have also been named after Ludwig Meyn. There is a memorial stone for Ludwig Meyn in Pinneberg on the station forecourt.

Working as a geologist

From 1846 he campaigned for the extraction of local raw materials such as gypsum and lime in Segeberger Kalkberg and Lieth . At the same time, Meyn collected over 1500 rock samples from all of Schleswig-Holstein as evidence, these still form the basis of the geological collection of the state university today.

In the spring of 1856, after the farmer Reimer Peters from Hemmingstedt came across foul-smelling sand while trying to drill a well for his cattle and called him for help, Ludwig Meyn began drilling the first oil wells in Dithmarschen with simple hand tools - three Years before Edwin L. Drake tapped the first oil well in the US state of Pennsylvania .

The first borehole initially reached a depth of 25 meters, further boreholes followed. It was the first ever drilling for oil, but without any great success: Meyn found only bituminous sand and oil chalk . Later he received the privilege of exploiting the bituminous sand from the Danish king and distilled his "solar oil" (a petroleum product) from the oil-containing sand, which replaced the foul-smelling and sooty beet and beet oil in the living room lamps. Next were bitumen and axle grease won.

In the years 1875/76, as a geologist, he also carried out the investigations and drilling in the mudflats off Sylt for the construction of the Hindenburg dam . Due to his positive results for the dam construction, the construction of the dam was to begin as early as 1913, but the project was delayed until 1923.

Working as an agricultural scientist

The former artificial fertilizer factory, today Harles and Jentzsch , a specialty company for the processing of animal and vegetable fats and oils

At the beginning of 1854 Ludwig Meyn took over an old sawmill in Uetersen and also founded a factory for building materials and fertilizers there . After a fire caused by an explosion at the end of 1860, the sawmill and lime production were given up. He later set up a fertilizer factory there . He wanted to bring Justus von Liebig's ideas into the agriculture of his home country through his factory. He particularly pointed out the use of the bone meal he produced . It is an organic fertilizer that contains lime, nitrogen and especially abundant phosphoric acid . It is thanks to him that artificial fertilizers could now be used, which brought greater yields to the fields.

Work as a journalist and poet

In 1854 he started working for the Itzehoer Nachrichten . There he imparted his specialist knowledge of the local soil types, animal and plant science and the use of artificial fertilizers to the population.

As a poet, he published a volume of poetry as early as 1843, during his student days. In 1865 he even published a dramatic piece ( Five Hours of Adventure ) based on an English model. But friends and acquaintances also occasionally received samples of his humor. Another publication was My Uncle the Mayor .

Works

Cover sheet from Dr. L. Meyn's Schleswig-Holstein house calendar for 1873

• Mineral systems (doctoral thesis) (1844)
• Holstein debris, asphalt in granite (1846)
• Geognostic Observations in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein (1847)
• Sinkholes near Stipsdorf (1850)
• The salt in the household of nature and man (1857)
• Agricultural paperbacks (1861–1878)
• The St. Elm Fire in January 1863 . In: The Gazebo . Issue 9, 1863, pp. 138–140 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
• Explanation of the geological map of Schleswig-Holstein (1864)
• Geognostic determination of the deposit of flint fragments near Bramstedt in Holstein (1868)
• Geognostic description of the island of Sylt and its surroundings: together with a geognostic map on a scale of 1: 100,000 (1876)
• The natural phosphates and their importance for the purposes of agriculture. (1872)
• The proper appreciation of Peruvian guano in agriculture for the rest of the century. (1872)
• The asphalt and its importance for road construction in large cities. (1872)
• Dr. Meyn's house calendar (from 1871)
• Dr. Meyn's agricultural calendar (from 1873)
• The amber of the north German plain on the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth deposit (1876)
• Geological overview map of Schleswig-Holstein (1882) (published after his death)
• The Soil Conditions in the Province of Schleswig-Holstein (1882) (published after his death)
• From life and nature - collected essays by Dr. L. Meyn, the business friend of Itzehoer Nachrichten

literature

• Eduard Alberti : Lexicon of the Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburgischen and Eutinian writers from 1829 to mid-1866 . Vol. 2: M – Z. Academic bookstore v. Maack, Kiel 1868, pp. 51-53 (digitized version ).
• Gottlieb Berendt : Dr. Ludewig Meyn: life outline and list of the same; with a portrait of Dr. Meyn's in collotype (= treatises on the geological special map of Prussia. Vol. 3, no. 3). Schropp, Berlin 1882.
• Carsten Erich Carstens :  Meyn, Ludewig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 648-650.
• Siegfried Zimmermann: Ludwig Meyn and the development of the German oil industry near Heide in Holstein. Dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1965.
• Siegfried Zimmermann: Ludwig Meyn - an oil pioneer in Schleswig-Holstein. In: Yearbook for the Pinneberg district . 1968, pp. 59-72.
• Hans Staack: The ancestors of the geologist Ludwig Meyn. In: Yearbook for the Pinneberg district . 1970, pp. 97-115.
• Hauke ​​Burmann: Black gold from the Wadden Sea - Mittelplate: Oil production on a sandbank in front of Dithmarschen. In: Uetersener Nachrichten , September 22, 2012.
• Fritz Treichel: Meyn, Claus Christian Ludwig. Born October 1, 1820 Pinneberg – d. November 4, 1878 Hamburg; Geologist, entrepreneur, promoter of agriculture. In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Vol. 2. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1971, ISBN 3-529-02642-5 , pp. 197-199.
• Friedrich Priewe: Memory of two almost forgotten: Johann Gottwerth Müller and Ludwig Meyn. In: Steinburger Yearbook . Vol. 22, 1978, pp. 47-61.
• Nis R. Nissen (edit.): 125 years of oil in Dithmarschen. A special exhibition in memory of Ludwig Meyn of the Dithmarscher Landesmuseum in Meldorf. German Texaco, Hamburg 1981.

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Meyn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Ludwig Meyn  - Sources and full texts