Horace-Bénédict de Saussure

Horace Bénédict de Saussure ( born February 17, 1740 in Conches, near Geneva, † January 22, 1799 in Geneva) was a Swiss naturalist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Sauss. " He is the father of Nicolas -Théodore de Saussure, grandfather of Henri de Saussure and great-grandfather of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Life and work

Saussure received funding from his father, Nicholas Saussure, his uncle, the naturalist and poet Albrecht von Haller and the physician Théodore Tronchin. He studied from 1754 onwards Natural Sciences at the University of Geneva, where he in 1759 Dr. phil. received his doctorate. In 1762 he was appointed with 22 years as a professor of philosophy at the University of Geneva.

Recognized are his contributions to the geology, whose founders he is counting to the physics of the earth and related sciences. He delivered remarkable plant anatomical work. The plant geography owes its foundations.

He traveled to France, Holland, England, Italy, Sicily and searched the Alps, especially the ice fields of Chamonix. In 1760, he put a significant amount of money from which to explore a route of ascent of Mont Blanc. In 1787, a year after the first ascent of Mont Blanc, he said, " accompanied by a servant leader and 18 " the first scientific ascent of this mountain. At the summit, he made, among other comparative barometric measurements. The measurements revealed on August 3, 1787 that the Mont Blanc the highest mountain in Europe is

He invented an electrometer, hygrometer and similar instruments, such as the cyanometer developed in the late 18th century by him (Greek ), which is an instrument for measuring the color intensity of the blue color of the sky. On these instruments at hand among others Alexander von Humboldt back in his American expeditions.

As founder and president of the Society of Arts, he gained to the factory system of Geneva great service.

He has extended his time in the knowledge of considerably Through the research in the fields of meteorology, geology, glaciology, magnetism and astronomy. The Frankfurt philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer mentions the naturalist in his dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: " SAUSSÜRE should, from Mont Blanc, have the rising moon seen so great that he did not recognize him and fainted with fright. "

Saussure is considered the father of modern Alpine Research. From his writings, his Voyages dans les Alpes are emphasized. To him also the name of the Dolomites is due, as he recognized the predominant rock there as an independent mineral and named it after the French geologist Déodat de Dolomieu dolomite. As a first ascent of the Matterhorn little Horace Bénédict de Saussure was also a pioneer of mountaineering.

In the later years of his life he took part in the new legislation of his country and was a member of the Council of the Two Hundred.

Awards and appreciation

• Ehrentaxon: to him, the plant genus of the Alps charters was named in honor of the sunflower family ( Asteraceae, formerly Compositae) named ( Saussurea DC. ).
• The lunar crater Saussure was named in 1935 by the International Astronomical Union after him.
• As a surveyor of the Matterhorn, he was pictured on the old Swiss 20 -franc note.
• In Paris, the Rue de Saussure is named after him.

Works

• Observations sur l' écorce of feuilles et des petals. 102 pp., Geneva 1762
• La manière de la provigner étroit sans engrais. 23 S., Frontenex 1773
• Systema plantarum secundum classes, ordines, genea, species, cum characteribus, differentis; nominibus trivialibus, synonimis Selectis, et locis natilbus. Frankfurt am Main, Varrentrapp Fils & Wenner, 1779
• Voyages dans les Alpes., Geneva 1779-96 (4 volumes)
• Essais Sur L' hygrometry. 542 S., Samuel Pere Et Fils Fauche, Neuchatel 1783
• Relation d'un voyage à la abrégée Cime du Mont -Blanc:. En août 1787 38 S., Bard & manget Geneva 1787.
• German version: Short report from a trip to the summit of Mont Blanc, in August 1787 Academic Bookstore, Strasburg 1788, 40 pages.. Facsimile Fines Mundi Verlag, Saarbrücken, 2008.
• Défense de l' hygromètre à cheveu. 82 pp., Geneva 1788
• Description de deux nouvelles de espèces trémelles douées d'un mouvement spontané. Journal de Physique, vol 37, pp. 401-409, 1790
• Manuscripts et publications de Horace - Bénédict de Saussure sur l' origine du basalte. Compilation of Albert V. Carozzi, 769 pp., Éditions Zoé, Geneva 2000. ISBN 2-88182-411-0