Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld

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Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld

Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld (born October 12, 1792 in Frugård , Finland , † February 2, 1866 in Helsinki ) was a Finnish mineralogist , chemist and geologist .

Life

Nordenskiöld, the tenth of 13 children of the landowner and Colonel Adolf Gustaf Nordenskiöld (1745–1821, brother of August Nordenskiöld ) and like his family Finnish-Swedish , studied law at the Åbo Akademi from 1811 with the legal state examination in 1813. His interest in mineralogy and chemistry (which he had already studied with J. Gadolin in Abo), however, allowed him to switch to study with Jöns Jakob Berzelius in Stockholm (1816), supported by Count N. Rumjantzow and other high-ranking people such as the Russian general Fabian Steinheil. He then passed the mountain exams at the Bergakademie in Uppsala in 1817. From 1818 he was a mining inspector (Bergmeister) in Finland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. In 1819/20 he was again with Berzelius and then on a study trip to Germany, France and England until the end of 1823. From 1824 until his death he was the head of the Mining Office in Helsinki.

He is considered the father of mineralogy in Finland and in his time most ore and mineral deposits were discovered, especially in the south-west of the country. In 1820 he published a book on minerals in Finland. He described around 20 minerals that were newly regarded at the time, but most of them later turned out to be already known or as variants of already known minerals. As a student of Berzelius, he often investigated the chemical composition, including that of a meteorite (found at Luotolaks) as one of the first. He found elements and compounds already known from earth. In 1827 he established his own system of mineral classification on a chemical-atomistic basis. In 1860 he published an essay explaining glacier scarring. His proposal for a national geological institute in Finland (1857) was not implemented at the time.

He was chairman of the Finnish Academy of Sciences. In 1819 he became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in 1853 a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1840 he received a doctorate and in 1855 he became a State Councilor. He was in correspondence with his teacher Berzelius.

A variant of chrysoberyl (alexandrite) that changes color depending on the incidence of light was discovered by him. Because of the color change he called it diaphanite, the name alexandrite in honor of Tsarevich Alexander coined in 1834 Lev Alexejewitsch Perowski , from whose collection the specimen examined by Nordenskiöld came.

He was married to Margareta von hilftman (daughter of the Finnish statesman Lars Gabriel von Brille , 1789-1856) and the father of the polar explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld .

Fonts

  • Bidrag till närmare kännemanland af Finlands mineralia och geognosie . Stockholm 1820
  • Mineralogical description of some aërolites which fell near Wiborg , in Finland . Edinburgh 1823
  • Försök till framställning af kemiska mineralsystemet, with afseende på öfverensstämelsen emellan fossiliernas kemiska sammansättning och deras crystal form . Stockholm 1827, 2nd edition Helsinki 1833
  • About the atomistic-chemical mineral system and the examination system of minerals . In: Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae , Volume 3, 1852 (presented in 1848)
  • Contribution to the knowledge of the scratches in Finland . In: Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae , Volume 7, 1860, pp. 505-543

literature

Web links

Commons : Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Nordisk Familjebok, there is a third edition in German from 1849. This is probably the article in Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, Volume 3, 1852
personal data
SURNAME Nordenskiöld, Nils Gustaf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish mineralogist, chemist and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1792
PLACE OF BIRTH Frugård , Finland
DATE OF DEATH February 2, 1866
Place of death Helsinki