HEINRICH GEORG

BRONN (1800-1862)  , German geologist, was born on the 3rd of March s800 at Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg . Studying at the university at Heidelberg he took his doctor's degree in the faculty of medicine in 1821, and in the following year was appointed professor of natural history . He now devoted himself to palaeontological studies, and to field-work in various parts of Germany, Italy and France . From its commencement in 183o to 1862 he, assisted in editing the Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, &c., continued as Nelms Jahrbuch . His principal work, Lethaea Geognostica (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1834–1838; 3rd ed. with F . Romer, 3 vols., 1851–1856), has been regarded as one of the foundations of German stratigraphical geology . His Handbuch einer Geschichteder Natur, of which the first part was issued in 1841, gave a general account of the physical history of the earth, while the second part dealt with the life-history, species being regarded as direct acts of creation . The third part included his famous Index Palaeontologicus, and was issued in 3 vols., 1848–1849, with the assistance of H. von Meyer and H . R . Goppert . This record of fossils has proved of inestimable value to all palaeontologists . An important work on recent and fossil zoology, Die Klassen and Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs, was commenced by Bronn .

He wrote the volumes dealing with Amorphozoa,

Actinozoa, and Malacozoa, published 1859–1862; the work was continued by other naturalists . In 1861 Bronn was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London . He died at Heidelberg on the 5th of July 1862 .