Peter Merian

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Peter Merian (center) with his colleagues Arnold Escher von der Linth (left), professor of geology in Zurich and Oswald Heer (right), professor of natural sciences in Zurich

Peter Merian (born December 20, 1795 in Basel ; † February 8, 1883 ibid) was a Swiss naturalist , geologist and politician .

Life

The rectory in Muttenz (2011)
Peter Merian, 1795–1883, Wolfgottesacker Cemetery, Basel
Family grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel

After his first lesson in the rectory of Muttenz from the age of 8 to 12, where he received the first stimulus for scientific studies from the pastor Christian Bernouilli, a respected physicist and, due to the proximity of the fossilized Wartenberg, an instigation to collect natural objects , especially from Petrefacts , deeply inoculated. From 1811 onwards, Peter Merian attended Christoph Bernoulli's Philotechnical Institute in Basel . After studying in Basel and Geneva, he studied with Friedrich Hausmann at the University of Göttingen from 1815 to 1817 , where Carl Friedrich Gauß taught and where he began his lifelong friendship with Bernhard Studer , with whom he later went on extensive excursions together with Escher von der Linth undertook. In 1820 Merian became professor for physics and chemistry at the University of Basel , from 1835 for geology and petrefactology . He was rector three times, most recently in 1860 . In addition, he was the defining personality in the development of the Basel Natural History Museum . From 1824 to 1873 he was a member of the Grand Council of the Canton of Basel and Basel-Stadt , and from 1836 to 1866 also of the Small Council . In the years 1842–48, several Basel envoy to the Diet . His grave is on the Wolfgottesacker .

His brother Johann Rudolf Merian (1797–1871) was a mathematician and politician. In 1821 he married Cécile Thurneysen (1798–1880), with whom he had a son and 3 daughters.

Honors

In 1862 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , in the same year an honorary member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and in 1864 a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1869 he became an honorary member of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg . He was a member of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors .

In 1876 Ferdinand Schlöth commissioned a monument bust of Peter Merian for the auditorium of the museum on Augustinergasse .

Fonts

  • Overview of the nature of the mountain formations in the surroundings of Basel with special regard to the Jura mountains in general. Basel, in the Schweighauser'schen Buchhandlung, 1821 Google Books
  • Overview of the state of our knowledge of natural history in the canton of Basel. Basel: Wieland, 1826
  • Negotiations of the Basler Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Volume 8: About a marine tertiary formation in the Randen. 1849
  • History of the Natural Research Society in Basel during the first fifty years of its existence. Buchdruckerei von C. Schultze, Basel 1867, pp. 1–52 Google Books
  • The mathematician Bernoulli . Schweighauser'sche Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, Basel 1860. Google Books

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Peter Merian  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm von Gümbel , ADB Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 430 f.
  2. ↑ Member entry of Peter Merian-Thurneysen at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on November 26, 2015.
  3. ↑ 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. 166.
  4. ↑ Member entry by Peter Merian-Thurneysen (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 5, 2016.
  5. ^ Honorary members of the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg
  6. ↑ Members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors 1857
  7. ↑ Stefan Hess / Tomas Lochman (eds.), Classical beauty and patriotic heroism. The Basel sculptor Ferdinand Schlöth (1818–1891) , Basel 2004, p. 172f.
personal data
SURNAME Merian, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss naturalist, geologist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1883
Place of death Basel