Alexandre Brongniart

Alexandre Brongniart ( born February 10, 1770 in Paris, † October 7, 1847 ) was a French chemist, mineralogist, geologist and zoologist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Al.Brongn. ".

Life

Alexandre Brongniart was the son of the architect Alexandre- Théodore Brongniart (1739-1813) and the father of the botanist Adolphe Brongniart Théodore ( 1801-1876 ).

He married Jeanne Cécile de Coquebert Montbret (1782-1862), the daughter of the statesman and scientist Charles- Etienne de Coquebert Montbret (1755-1831); her only son was the botanist Adolphe Théodore Brongniart and palaeobotanist and two daughters Hermione Brongniart (1803-1890), she married the chemist Jean -Baptiste Dumas (1800-1884) and the recent Mathilde Brongniart (1808-1882), she married Jean Victor Audouin ( 1797-1841 ).

He studied at the École des Mines, and later at the École de Médecine, and after a period as an assistant to his uncle Antoine -Louis Brongniart (1742-1804), then professor of chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes. After serving as aide - pharmacien the French military in the Pyrenees, Brongniart returned to Paris. In 1794 he was appointed Ingénieur des mines, and appointed in 1797 as Professor of Natural History at the École Centrale des Quatre -Nations. In 1818, then to Ingénieur en chef des mines, and in 1822 he succeeded René -Just Haiiy ( 1743-1822 ) as professor of mineralogy at the Muséum national d' histoire naturelle replace. In 1824, Brongniart was elected a member of the Scholars Academy Leopoldina.

He taught at the École de Mines and was director of the porcelain factory of Sèvres.

He was interred in the Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, 11 th Division.

Scientific achievements

His other work included works on mineralogy, to the art of ceramics and a new (now outdated ) classification of reptiles. For paleontology important were his studies on trilobites as well as his contributions to stratigraphy, index fossils because he used to distinguish geologic layers from each other. Brongniart held the position of Director of the porcelain factory of Sèvres from 1800 to 1847. During this time he founded the French National Ceramics Museum (Le musée national de Ceramique ).

In 1813 he described a volcanic rock called trachyte.

Zoological

Brongniart writes in his earliest scientific work - it was the first was published in 1791 - about various zoological and mineralogical- geological topics.

He was strongly influenced by Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), a contemporary. He emphasized in his Essai d'une classification naturelle of reptiles (1800) the primary importance of a carefully conducted comparative anatomy, and on this basis, he divided the class into four groups of Reptilia. He recognized, however, that a group that amphibians that significantly differed from all others, especially in the reproductive organs, and that this distinction was much more important than the remaining differences. In 1804, Pierre André Latreille sat ( 1762-1833 ), the amphibians in a separate class, just the amphibians. Brongniarts grouping of true reptiles essentially correspond to modern systematics. He made the first systematic study of the trilobites, an extinct class of arthropods. These were important in determining the chronology of the various Paleozoic strata ( here 540-245 million years ago).

Mineralogical- Geological

A. Brongniart who studied the geology of the Paris Basin, together with Georges Cuvier. He published next to the geology of the Swiss Jura. He was the first scientist ( from 66.4 to 1.6 million years ago) ordered the geological formations of the tertiary period in chronological order and described. Brongniart is regarded as the first to describe the minerals Bustamite, Dufrénit, glauberite and nacrite.

Works

• Brongniart, Alexandre: Traite des Arts Ceramique, ou the poteries considerees dan leur
• Brongniart, Alexandre: Essai d'une classification naturelle of reptiles. in the Bulletin de la Société Philomathique, 2 ( 1800), 81-82, 89-91
• Brongniart, A.; Cuvier, Georges: Essai sur la géographie mineralogique des environs de Paris Journal des Mines, 23, no 138 ( June 1808), 421-458