Paul-François Lacoste
Paul-François Lacoste (born February 4, 1755 in Plaisance-du-Touch near Toulouse , † April 18, 1826 in Clermont-Ferrand ) was a French clergyman (Abbé), naturalist and geologist who studied the volcanoes of the Auvergne .
Lacoste was first vicar at Toulouse and then was a teacher of ethics. During the French Revolution he traveled to the Auvergne region and in 1798 became professor of natural history Ecole centrale in the Puy-de-Dôme department and headed the Botanical Garden of Clermont-Ferrand . When the Ecole centrale was closed in 1804, he was taken over by the city of Clermont-Ferrand as professor of natural history and, after its establishment in 1808, taught at the city's lyceum. Shortly before his death, he became an honorary canon.
With regard to the nature of volcanoes, he partly followed Eugène Patrin (1742-1825), librarian at the Conseil des Mines and author of an essay on volcanism (Recherches sur les volcans d'après les principes de la chimie pneumatique, Journal de Physique 1800) from there Today's view of the sometimes adventurous notions of chemical processes that take place in volcanoes (essentially he was a kind of Neptunist and saw the circulation of certain liquids at work), but he only adopted the hypothesis that flammable liquids (bitumen) were the cause of volcanism. Overall, like Patrin, he still saw their formation as a result of the sea retreat, even if, according to his observations, they were not formed directly in the sea.
From today's point of view, his observations appear to be a step backwards compared to the ideas of his predecessors, who dealt with volcanism especially in the Auvergne ( Nicolas Desmarest and especially François Dominique de Reynaud de Montlosier or ideas that Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu expressed while traveling through the Auvergne ).
Fonts
- Observations sur les volcans d'Auvergne, 1803
- Lettres minéralogiques et géologiques sur les volcans d'Auvergne, 1805
- Observations on the travaux qui doivent être faits pour la recherche des objets d'antiquité dans le département du Puy-de-Dôme, 1824
Web links
- Les landais célèbres, with photo
- Jean Gaudant: Un observateur méconnu des volcans d'Auvergne: l'abbé Paul-François Lacoste, de Plaisance (1755-1826), Travaux du comité francais d'histoire de la géologie (COFRHIGEO), 2003, website of the Annales des Mines .
References and comments
- ↑ As well as author of the article Volcan in the 1st edition of the Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire naturelle appliquée aux Arts , 1804
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lacoste, Paul-François |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French clergyman, naturalist and geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 4, 1755 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Plaisance-you-Touch |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 18, 1826 |
| Place of death | Clermont-Ferrand |