Élie Bertrand

Elie Bertrand ( baptized May 17, 1713 in Orbe, † August 23 1797 in Yverdon ) was a Reformed pastor and scientists from Switzerland.

After studying theology at the Academy of Lausanne, the Academy of Geneva and the University of Leiden, he worked from 1740 to 1744 as pastor in Ballaigues and Orbe and was from 1744 to 1765, first vicar and then pastor of the French church in Bern.

In 1765 he was privy of the Polish king Stanisław August, headed until 1766 in Warsaw, the Ministry of industry, agriculture and science and was raised in 1768 for his service in the Polish nobility. Already in 1767, however, he returned back to Switzerland to Champagne at Yverdon down.

Bertrand was a member of the Economic Society in Bern, the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, the Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in Berlin, the Baierischen Academy of Sciences in Munich, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, and the Academies of Leipzig, Basel, Lyon and Florence, corresponded with Voltaire, Albrecht von Haller and Carl Linnaeus, and was interested in in addition to theology, especially for philosophy, linguistics, natural history, seismology and hydrography.

Works

• Mémoires sur la structure de la terre intérieure, Zurich 1752
• Essai sur les usages des montagnes, avec une lettre sur le Nil, Zurich 1754
• Mémoires historiques et physiques sur les tremblemens de terre, The Hague 1757
• Recherches sur les langues anciennes et modernes de la Suisse et principalement du pays de Vaud, Geneva 1758
• Dictionnaire universel of fossil propres et des fossil accidentels, The Hague 1763
• Essai sur l'art de l' esprit former, ou Premiers Elemens de la logique, Lyon 1764
• Recueil de divers traités sur l' histoire naturelle de la terre et des fossil, Avignon 1766
• Lettre à M. le Cte de Buffon ... ou Nouvel essai sur la Critique et théorie générale de la terre avec une notice dernier discours du de M. Pallas, sur la formation des montagnes, sur les chan gemens Arrives au globe, etc., Besançon 1782