Robert Jameson
Robert Jameson (* July 1774 in Leith , Scotland , † April 19, 1854 in Edinburgh ) was a Scottish natural historian , mineralogist and geologist .
Life
Jameson received his education at the Leith Academy in his hometown. He then studied medicine, botany, chemistry and natural history at the University of Edinburgh , initially as a medical assistant to John Cheyne . In 1793, influenced by the natural historian John Walker , he switched to the field of mineralogy and geology. As Walker's assistant, he was entrusted with looking after the university museum. He expanded the natural history collection of his university to include finds from the Hebrides , the Orkneys and the Shetland Islands .
From 1800 to 1801 he spent a year at the Bergakademie von Freiberg in Saxony , where he worked under the geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner . In 1803 he followed Walker as Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh .
In 1799 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1820 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .
Jameson was the great-uncle of the British colonial politician Sir Leander Starr Jameson .
Services
Jameson became the first well-known representative of so-called Neptunism or Wernism in Scotland and served as President of the Wernerian Natural History Society from 1804 until his death . In 1819 he founded together with Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal and in 1824 became the sole editor. His private mineral collection forms the main part of the collection of the Royal Scottish Museum to this day .
Jameson is also the first to describe the mineral oliveite and gave bournonite its name , which is still valid today. A mineral he described as azurite later turned out to be lazulite .
Fonts
- Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles (1800)
- A System of Mineralogy (1804, 1808; 3 editions)
- Elements of Geognosy (1809)
- Manual of Mineralogy (1821)
Honors
- The mineral Jamesonite , discovered and described in 1825, was named after him. William Scoresby gave a region he discovered in East Greenland in 1822 the name Jamesonland .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 23, 2019 .
- ↑ Mindat - Azurite (of Jameson)
- ↑ Mindat - Jamesonite (English)
- ↑ Anthony K. Higgins: Exploration history and place names of northern East Greenland (= Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin 21, 2010), ISBN 978-87-7871-292-9 (English). P. 206 f. ( PDF ; 12.3 MB).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Jameson, Robert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish natural historian and geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 1774 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Leith , Scotland |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 19, 1854 |
| Place of death | Edinburgh |