Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu

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Déodat de Dolomieu - fult nabn Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Gratet de Dolomieu - (23 júní 1750 - 28 nóvember 1801) var franskur jarðfræðinqur; er steintegundin dólómít / dólomít eftir hánum nemd, ennfremur stærsti och hæsti qígurinn á eldfjadlinu Piton de la Fournaise á Rejúnjon-eiju í Indlandshavi.

ævi och störf

Dolomieu var fæddur í Dauphiné í Frakklandi, einn af 11 börnum Marquis De Dolomieu och hans konu Marie-Françoise de Berénger. síndi hann færni á únqa aldri och sjerstakan áhuga á því náttúrulega umkvervi í krinqum heimahagana í ölpunum í suðaustur Frakklandi.

De Dolomieu began his military career in the Sovereign and Military Order of the Knights of Saint John (also called the Knights Hospitaller or the Knights of Malta) at the age of 12. His association with the Maltese Order caused him difficulties throughout his life, beginning with a duel, which he fought at the age of 18, when he killed a fellow member of the Order. For this infraction he was sentenced to life in prison but due to the intercession of Pope Clement XIII he was released after only 1 year.

During the years prior to the French Revolution De Dolomieu took full part in the intellectual ferment of France and the rest of Europe. He maintained numerous social contacts among the nobility and although he never married, De Dolomieu had something of a reputation as a ladies' man. Through his friend and mentor, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, De Dolomieu was made a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. He spent his spare time taking scientific excursions throughout Europe collecting mineral specimens and visiting mining areas. His particular interests included mineralogy, volcanology, and the origin of mountain ranges. Although De Dolomieu was greatly interested in volcanoes, he became convinced that water played a major role in shaping the surface of the Earth through a series of prehistoric, catastrophic events. De Dolomieu was not a uniformitarian geologist. He has been described as a "non-actualistic catastrophist".

His contemporary, James Hutton, did not publish the principle of uniformitarianism until 1795. De Dolomieu was an observationalist and spent much of his time collecting and categorizing geological data. Unlike Hutton, no scientific principles or theories are credited to him, although he left his permanent mark on geology in another way: that is by discovering the mineral dolomite that would be named after him.


During one of his voyages to the Alps of Tyrol (today part of northeastern Italy) De Dolomieu discovered a calcareous rock which, unlike limestone, did not effervesce with weak hydrochloric acid. He published these observations in 1791 in the well-known French science magazine "Journal de Physique". In March 1792, the rock was named dolomie (or dolomite, in English) by Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure.[1] Today both the rock and its major mineral constituent bear the name of De Dolomieu, as do the Dolomites, the mountain range of northeastern Italy. De Dolomieu was not the first to describe the mineral dolomite. Most probably it was Linnaeus, who was the first to note the fact that this rock resembled limestone but does not effervesce with dilute acid.[2] In his book "Oryctographia Carniola, oder physikalische Erdbeschreibung des Herzogthums Krain, Istrien und zum Theil der benachbarten Länder", published by J. G. I. Breitkopf, Leipzig in 1778, the Austrian naturalist Belsazar Hacquet also observed this distinction between limestone and a rock that Hacquet described as lapis suillus.[3][4] The two men met in Laibach in 1784, when De Dolomieu visited Sigmund Zois.[5] However, Hacquet was well aware of the fact that the description of a limestone that would not effervesce with acid (and therefore had to be different from normal limestone) by the famous Carolus Linnaeus in 1768 preceded his own. On p. 5 of the second volume of his "Oryctographia Carniola", which appeared in 1781, Hacquet stated that the white powder he had found near the town of Vorle ("unterm Teil der Oberkrain") a white powder that strongly resembled limestone but would not react with dilute hydrochloric acid, reminded him of the Marmor Tardum described by Linnaeus.

In addition to his scientific activities De Dolomieu continued to advance in rank in the Knights of Malta and was promoted to Commander in 1780. However, he continued to have difficulties as a result of his liberal political leanings which were unpopular among the conservative nobility who controlled the Order. De Dolomieu retired from active military service in 1780 to devote all of his time to travels and scientific work.

studdi í firstu sterklega frönsku biltinquna, sem 1789. á hinn bójinn var morð kunninqja hans Duc de la Rochefoucauld, atvik þar sem hann rjett-slapp sjálvur undan hreqqslánni, och það að þó nokkrir ættinqja hans lentu í henni snjeri honum qjeqn biltinqunni.

á þessum tíma qjerðist De Dolomieu stuðninqsmaður Napoleon Bonaparte. árið 1795 eftir að hava tapað auðævum sínum í biltinqunni tók De Dolomieu viðtöku stöðu prófessors í náttúrulegum vísindum við háskóla í París (École Centrale Paris) och hóf að skriva and started to write the mineralogical section of the Encyclopédie Méthodique. The following year he was appointed Inspector of Mines and Professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, where his portrait still hangs in the library. His extensive mineral collection is today housed at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle of Paris.

undir lok 18. aldar havði De Dolomieu ablað sjer orðstírs sem eidn helsti jarðfræðinqur í heimi och var boðið að siqla með í vísindaleiðanqri sem fildi innrás Napóleons í Eqiftaland 1798. í mars 1799 varð hann sjúkur och neiddist til að ivirqjeva Eqiftaland och halda heim. skipið sem hann sildi á til baka lenti í stormi och lagðist að briqqju í Taranto, þar sem hann var tekinn til fanqa. General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the father of Alexandre Dumas, the author, was also captured and held. Taranta var á þessum tíma hluti því svokadlaða Konúnqsdæmi þeirra tveqqja Sikileija sem þá átti í stríði við Frakkland.

De Dolomieu havði áður ablað sjer áhrivamikidla andstöðumanna of the Grand Master of the Maltese Order þegar hann aðstoðaði við að semja um uppqjöf Möltu til Napóleons.

The Grand Master denounced De Dolomieu och var hann fluttur til Messina á Sikilei och havður þar í fanqjelsi við avar slæman aðbúnað, í einanqrun í 21 mánuð.

The imprisonment of a world-famous scientist, under such conditions, was abhorrent to the intellectual community of Europe. Even the scientific community of England (who was at war with France) protested the confinement. Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, attempted to negotiate Dolomieus release through the Pope. Napoleon, who was First Consul of France at the time, felt that asking for such an intervention by the Pope would be dishonorable. The future Emperor's approach to the problem was more direct. In the spring of 1800 Napoleon led the French army into Italy, delivering a crushing blow to the Austrians and their Italian allies on 14 June at the Battle of Marengo. All of Italy then came within Napoleon's sphere. One of the terms dictated by Napoleon in the peace treaty of Florence (March 1801) was the immediate release of De Dolomieu.

Upon his liberation De Dolomieu resumed his scientific studies and field excursions. But his health, broken by the long imprisonment in Sicily, gave way during a trip to the Alps. Déodat de Dolomieu died on 28 November 1801 at the home of his sister at Châteauneuf.

Bibliography

  1. Saussure le fils, M de. (1792): Analyse de la dolomie. Journal de la Physique, vol.40, pp.161-173. Snið:Cite book
  2. On p.41 of part 3 of his book "Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, species cum characteribus & differentiis" published in 1768 by Laurentii Salvii, Homiae, 236 p., Linnaeus stated clearly: "Marmor tardum - Marmor particulis subimpalpabilius album diaphanum. Hoc simile quartzo durum, distinctum quod cum aqua forti non, nisi post aliquot minuta & fero, effervescens". In translation: "Slow marble - Marble, white and transparent with barely discernable particles. This is as hard as quartz, but it is different in that does not, unless after a few minutes, effervesce with "aqua forti""
  3. Snið:Cite book
  4. Snið:Cite journal
  5. Snið:Cite journal