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Joachim Barrande

1883; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 28; Issue: 728 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/028564e0

1476-4687

Geological and Geochemical Analysis

THE announcement that Barrande has passed away will be received with sincere regret in every quarter of the globe where geology is cultivated. His death severs another of the few remaining links that connect the present generation of workers with the early pioneers of geological science. Born in 1800, he was eventually appointed tutor to the young Due de Bordeaux. So attached did he become to the royal family of France, that when Charles X. abdicated he voluntarily went into exile, accompanying his young pupil to Prague, which remained his domicile thenceforward to the end of his long life. It was during the early years of his exile that he gave himself to natural history pursuits. In a brief visit to Vienna he came upon a copy of Murchison's “Silurian System,” then recently published, and finding some of the fossils therein figured to resemble others which he had himself picked up in Bohemia, he on his return began to look more attentively at the rocks of his neighbourhood. Getting more interested with every fresh excursion, he began to open quarries and employ workmen to search for fossils. In order the more easily to direct their work he laboriously acquired their language. Year after year he continued these researches, devoting to them his time, energy, and fortune. He became the prince of fossil collectors. But at the same time he applied himself with unwearied industry to the scientific study of the fossils and of the rocks containing them. By degrees his labours took shape, and there resulted from them his colossal work, the “Système Silurien de la Bohême,” a noble monument of scientific enthusiasm. It was begun as far back as 1852. Since that time no fewer than twenty-two massive quarto volumes of text and plates have been published. Undeterred by the remonstrances of a publisher who would insist on counting the cost and the sale, Barrande was his own publisher, and prosecuted his labour of love down to the end of his life. His numerous separate papers on geological subjects began to appear in 1846, and have been continued to the present time. Living in exile for upwards of half a century, Barrande occasionally visited his native country, and took a keen interest in scientific progress there, but remained an unflinching royalist, refusing to do anything or accept any distinction which might seem to compromise his political principles. He even declined to be nominated a corresponding member of the French Academy. But honours were heapefl upon him by the scientific societies of other countries. Due tribute will no doubt be paid to his scientific achievements; for the present we have time only to offer these few lines to the memory of one of the most unwearied and profound students of palæontology, and one of the most upright and honourable of men.