Frederick Augustus Genth

Friedrich August Ludwig Karl Wilhelm Genth ( born May 16, 1820 Waechtersbach, † February 2nd 1893 in Philadelphia ) was a German -American chemist and mineralogist.

He studied in Heidelberg and Giessen and received his PhD in 1845 in Marburg under Robert Wilhelm Bunsen Dr. phil. He was first assistant to Bunsen and then a lecturer at the University of Marburg.

In the summer of 1848 he emigrated to the USA and founded in Philadelphia one of the first chemical analytical laboratories. Short term he was also superintendent of a silver mine in North Carolina. In 1850 he returned to Philadelphia and opened again his lab. In 1872 he became professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, two years later, a geologist at the Geological Survey in 1877 as well as chemist at the Board of Agriculture. In 1880 he became president of the American Chemical Society. In the spring of 1888 he took lessons at the private laboratory on again.

Genth developed a great passion for minerals and collected or acquired in the course of his life, nearly 12,000 mineral and 70 meteorite pieces. His collection forms a significant part of the geological collection of the University of Pennsylvania. He discovered and described 23 new minerals, as among other things the Calaverit (1868 ), Cosalit (1868 ), Schirmerit (1874, discredited 2008), Coloradoite (1877 ), Phosphuranylite (1879 ), Lansfordit (1888), nesquehonite (along with Penfield 1890) and Aguilarit (1891 ).

Honors

Two newly discovered minerals were named after him, the Genthit (1840, with recognition of CNMNC renamed antigorite ) and the Genthelvin (1944).

The cooperative comprehensive school of his home town of Waechtersbach is named after him ( since 17 June 1997).