Wilhelm Maucher (mineralogist)

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Portrait of Wilhelm Maucher in 1904

Wilhelm Maucher (born June 15, 1879 in Winterstettenstadt , † May 4, 1930 in Munich ) was a German mineralogist . Wilhelm Maucher is the discoverer of the mineral maucherite named after him . He is the namesake for the fossils Senariocrinus maucheri and Palasterina maucheri .

Life

Parents of W. Maucher 1861

Wilhelm Maucher grew up in Winterstettenstadt as the 14th of 15 children of the tanner and later cement goods manufacturer Anton Maucher. Wilhelm Maucher already collected pebbles in his childhood and developed a great love for minerals that lasted his whole life. After elementary school he went to the secondary school in Ravensburg and from there to the upper secondary school in Cannstatt .

Wilhelm Maucher then studied from October 11, 1897 at the Royal Saxon Mining Academy in Freiberg / Saxony , where he graduated on December 19, 1901 with a degree in iron and steel engineering . Wilhelm was the only one among the siblings who studied.

Wilhelm Maucher worked from December 1901 to 1903 in the processing plants of Muldenhütten as an industrial chemist / metallurgical engineer. In 1903 Maucher discovered an unknown, probably new mineral among the incoming wagon loads in Muldenhütten. He gave the material found to Karel Vrba (1845–1922). His student Bohuslav Ježek analyzed this find, recognized it as a new mineral and named it after his teacher Vrba as Vrbait . The final formula of the Vrbait, Hg 3 Tl 4 As 8 Sb 2 S 20 , only became known in 1968 after chemical and microprobe investigations by Werner Nowacki .

From October 1, 1903, Wilhelm Maucher worked in the civil service at the Royal Mountain School in Freiberg / Saxony as an assistant and teacher. From June 1, 1904 to August 31, 1909, he was a factor in the mineral defeat of the Royal Saxon Mining Academy in Freiberg, the oldest mineral dealership in the world. During this time he continued his teaching at the Royal Mountain School.

During his service as a factor, Wilhelm Maucher examined and described the goods to be conveyed to the Tsumeb deposit for the Royal Saxon Hüttenwerke . Most of the Tsumeb minerals, which were thereby given to the Freiberg Mining Academy, were exchanged in many countries and today form the basis for numerous European Tsumeb collections.

In 1909 Wilhelm Maucher went into business for himself and opened the Süddeutsche Mineralienzentrale in Munich . Wilhelm Maucher noticed a previously unknown mineral on steps from Eisleben in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, which he sent in January 1912 to the Mineralogical Institute of the Royal University of Munich for further investigation, which confirmed his suspicion. The description of the new mineral and publication as Maucherite was finally made by Friedrich Grünling (1913), who named the mineral after Wilhelm Maucher. In 1940 Martin Alfred Peacock was able to show after single-crystal investigations and chemical analyzes that the maucherite has the chemical composition Ni 11 As 8 .

In the spring of 1916 Wilhelm Maucher was one of the pioneers in the Munich recruit depot, I. Bayr. Replacement train pulled in. In 1918 he returned from the war as a lieutenant unharmed.

Wilhelm Maucher died on May 4, 1930 as a result of a brain tumor in Munich.

He was married to Frieda (nee Spiess) and the father of four children. His son Albert Maucher also became a well-known geologist and founder of the Albert Maucher Prize.

Two fossils, Senariocrinus maucheri and Palasterina maucheri , were named after him because of his numerous preparations and mineralogical determinations, which he published in the educational series of minerals .

Senariocrinus maucheri (holotype)

His minerals shop on Munich's Schellingstrasse was destroyed in a bomb attack in 1944 and reopened in Munich-Pasing after the war . His grandson has been running it to this day.

Fonts

  • Guide for geology lessons at mountain and hut schools (Craz & Gerlach Verlag, Freiberg 1907)
  • The formation series of minerals as a basis for the classification of the ore deposits (Craz & Gerlach Verlag, Freiberg 1914)
  • The ore deposit of Tsumeb in the Otavi district in the north of German South Africa (Journal of Practical Geology, pp. 24-35, Volume XVI, Jan. 1908)
  • Directory of salable minerals for exercises in soldering tube testing, inorganic chemical laboratories, testing laboratories, metallurgical, technological and other institutes (self-published, probably 1909, printed by Gerlachsche Buchdruckerei, Freiberg in Saxony)

literature

  • The lead-copper ore deposits of Tsumeb in the Otavi district in the north of German Southwest Africa (Annual report of the Freiberg Geological Society, p. 17 in pp. 20-21, 1908)
  • A. Rosati and H. Steinmetz: About Maucherite and Placodin (Journal for Crystallography, etc., Volume I- III, Issue 14, Leipzig 1914)
  • W. Erich Schmidt: The Crinoids of the Rhenish Devonian (treatises of the Prussian State Institute Berlin, issue 163, year 1934)
  • M. Henglein: Phenakit and Euclas in the Striegau area (exploration 1959, p. 29)
  • Hans-Ulrich Mueller: From the life of old Freiberg mountain students (supplement to the Schiffer volumes I-III, p. 214-215, Essen 1971)
  • Mareen Czekalla and Klaus Thalheim: The Richard Baldauf Collection (1848–1931) and its relation to Austria (GeoAlp, special volume I, pp. 11-22, 2007, online edition ; PDF; 358 kB)
  • Andreas Fels: Namibia's stone treasures are coveted (Allgemeine Zeitung Namibia, September 14, 2007, az.com.na ( Memento from February 21, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ))

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Maucher  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Maucher, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Winterstettenstadt
DATE OF DEATH May 4th 1930
Place of death Munich