Gustav Eisen

Gustaf iron ( born August 2, 1847 in Stockholm, Sweden, † October 29, 1940 in Manhattan, New York, United States) was a Swedish naturalist and collector. He was in his time a leading specialist in the earthworm research, founded the raisin industry in California, founded the second oldest national park in the United States and made a cup popular, whom he regarded as the Holy Chalice. It is named sometimes " Iron Gustav " or " Gustavus A. Eisen" written.

Youth

Gustaf in 1847, the son of the merchant Frans iron, and his second wife Amalia, born Mark Ander, to the world. The mother of his seven siblings had long ago passed away. The boy was sickly in his youth and was therefore sent by the parents was eleven years old with a nanny to Gotland, where he spent the next five years. The teachers of general education establishment in Visby - among them the cultural historian Pehr Arvid Säve (1811-1887) - praises iron in his autobiographical sketches in the highest terms. 1866 died iron father and left him a considerable fortune.

Iron best friend on Gotland was Stuxberg Anton (1849-1902), who was to later become known by the Vega expedition. Together, the pair wrote the treatise " Contributions to the knowledge of Gotska Sandon ," which was published despite the young age of the authors in 1868 by the Royal Academy of Sciences. To date, it is debatable whether they have actually seen a white-backed woodpecker as they specify it. 1869 followed the second book " Gotland phanerogams and thallophytes with localities for the rarer ". It contains a list of all 957 species of plants that were known at that time on Gotland.

The later writer August Strindberg had already seen iron in elementary school, and after his return from Gotland they were back schoolmates at the Higher College in Stockholm. In 1868, he finished high school. Then they went together to study in Uppsala. Iron supported jointly with another fellow students Strindberg with a grant of 25 crowns per month, the two donors were hiding behind a pseudonym. Strindberg has iron in his book " From the Latin Quarter: Sketches from the Swedish University of Life" portrayed in a short story called " The loner ".

Study

Iron studied with the zoologist and botanist Vilhelm Lilljeborg Thore Magnus Fries. To earthworm research, he was of the Stockholm Veterinary Professor Hjalmar Kinberg (1820-1908), who supervised the zoological collections of the Academy of Sciences suggested. In 1870 he published the "Contributions to the oligochaete fauna of Scandinavia ", in which he abhandelte all then known earthworm species in Scandinavia. Gustaf iron was one of the first Darwinists in Scandinavia, and so he sent his book also to Charles Darwin (Darwin later quoted in his book " The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms " iron work for earthworm systematics because, in such work English-speaking countries was not ).

1873 put iron in Uppsala from his exam and was immediately appointed to the faculty in zoology. Sven Lovén, head of the Invertebrates Department at the Natural History National Museum in Stockholm, saw a possible successor in iron. He organized for the young researchers a research trip to Boston at the famous Louis Agassiz and on to California. Agassiz was so thrilled with iron, that he obliged him to collect not only for the Swedish researchers, but also for him. He provided him with the equipment for a two-year expedition, which was shipped to San Francisco, and promised him a professorship at Harvard University in the return. In California, arrived, iron was elected to the California Academy of Sciences, but also had to learn that Agassiz had died unexpectedly. He first explored the then uninhabited island of Santa Catalina Iceland.

Contributions to horticulture California

In California, he also met the future founder of the Anthropogeografie Friedrich Ratzel. 1874 They traveled for two months in the Sierra Nevada. Iron had his entire inheritance in the marine insurance " Neptunus " created. When they went bankrupt, only a thousand crowns were rescued, and Gustaf iron suddenly as destitute. His half-brother Francis, who lived in California, put it on a farm near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley as an administrator. The iron brothers started with a few acres of vines and a small alfalfa field, but around 1880 comprised the farm more than 120 acres with its own irrigation, a distillery and large orchards and produced 5,000 hectoliters of wine. Iron experimented happy with new plants, trying to grow tobacco, before he took up a friend on the idea to produce raisins. To this end, he imported grapes, which were suitable for the production of raisins, from Australia, thus establishing an important branch of the California horticulture industry. He published in 1890 in The Raisin Industry, which became the standard work His knowledge. Other plants introduced iron in the Californian horticulture, were the fig and avocado. Later he purchased own land and started a nursery.

The establishment of Sequoia National Park

The redwoods, which are in each group in the Sierra Nevada, had been discovered in 1852. Supporters of the Danish Socialist Laurence Grønlund (1846-1899) wanted to buy land in this area and cut down the trees. Iron denounced the threat of deforestation in a lecture to the California Academy and worked out a plan for a reserve. On September 25, 1890 only a relatively small Sequoia National Park was established. Iron intervened directly with U.S. President Benjamin Harrison, who tripled the area a week later by a decree. In Sequoia National Park is under the Yellowstone National Park to the second oldest national park in the United States.

In the 1890s, iron worked as a department manager at the California Academy of Sciences. The only known relationship he used to Alice Eastwood, the Head of Department of Botany, but both remained unmarried. Around the turn of the century gave iron to his post and opened a photography studio in San Francisco. Twice - in 1904 and 1906 - came back iron for a private visit to Sweden. As the city burned down after the earthquake of 1906, lost his iron library, archive and correspondence. He himself was at the time in Italy.

Art Historical Work

Already in January 1882 iron had left the estate of his brother and had traveled to Guatemala, which he for a year - mostly on foot - roamed. The circumstances of this trip are unclear. Through his contacts in Guatemala declined later Phoebe Hearst iron, as they wanted to build up a collection of Central American textiles. 1902 traveled iron in their job again for a year by Guatemala. Hearst was so pleased that she supported his other projects until the First World War with the result.

From 1910 brushed iron through Europe, where he lived in Rome for long. In April 1915 he returned to New York, where he was a peculiar silver chalice was shown in an antique shop. The owner of the store Fahim Kouchakji asked him to write an opinion on the chalice. After eight years, was finally published a seven -pound book The Great Chalice of Antioch, claimed in the iron to have discovered the Holy Chalice. The Silver Chalice is kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In old age, wrote iron nor books on glass objects until the 16th century and about the portraits that have been handed down by George Washington. He spent his final years in New York; his ashes are buried at Mount iron.

Named after iron organisms

Many organisms are named after iron, including the two genera in the brown alga Eisenia ( Areschoug 1876) and earthworms ( Malm 1877, including, for example, the compost worm Eisenia fetida ). About fifty species bear his name, including earthworms, flies, bees, ants, dragonflies, spiders, copepods, brown algae and a snake.

Publications (selection)

• Gustaf iron and Anton Stuxberg: Gotland och Fanerogamer Thallogamer, med fyndorter för de sällsyntare [ German: Gotland phanerogams and thallophytes with localities for the rarer ]. Uppsala 1869.
• Gustaf iron: bidrag till Scandinavia Oligochaetfauna [ German: Contributions to the oligochaete fauna of Scandinavia ]. P. A. Norstedt & Söner, Stockholm 1872/1874.
• Gustav Eisen: The Raisin Industry. A Practical Treatise On The Raisin Grapes, Their History, Culture And Curing. H. S. Crocker, San Francisco, 1890.
• Gustav Eisen: The Fig: Its History, Culture, and Curing. United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1901.
• Gustavus A. Eisen: Glass, its origin, history, chronology, technic and classification to the sixteenth century. William Edwin Rudge, New York, 1927.
• Gustavus A. Eisen: The Great Chalice of Antioch, on Which are Depicted in sculpture the earliest known portraits of Christ, the apostles and evangelists. 2 vols. Kouchakji Frères, New York 1928.
• Gustavus A. Eisen: Portraits of Washington. 3 volumes. Robert Hamilton & Associates, New York, 1932.