Background
Heinrich E. Beyrich was born on August 31, 1815, into a substantial old Berlin merchant family.
Humboldt University of Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
After completing his secondary education Heinrich Beyrich entered Berlin University at the age of sixteen in order to study the natural sciences, especially mineralogy under Christian Samuel Weiss. Beyrich received the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Berlin University (now Humboldt University of Berlin) in 1837 with a Latin dissertation dealing with the goniatites of the Rhenish Schiefergebirge. His choice of topic was greatly influenced by Buch.
Humboldt University of Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
After completing his secondary education Heinrich Beyrich entered Berlin University at the age of sixteen in order to study the natural sciences, especially mineralogy under Christian Samuel Weiss. Beyrich received the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Berlin University (now Humboldt University of Berlin) in 1837 with a Latin dissertation dealing with the goniatites of the Rhenish Schiefergebirge. His choice of topic was greatly influenced by Buch.
University of Bonn, Regina-Pacis-Weg 3, 53113 Bonn, Germany
In 1834, Heinrich Beyrich transferred to the University of Bonn.
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Postfach 110543 06019 Halle, Germany
In 1895, Heinrich Beyrich was awarded the Cotenius Medal of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, Unter den Linden 8, Berlin, Germany
In 1853 Heinrich Beyrich was elected a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
Königliche Geologische Landesanstalt und Bergakademie, Invalidenstraße 44, Berlin, Germany
When the Königliche Geologische Landesanstalt und Bergakademie was founded in Berlin in 1873, Heinrich Beyrich was appointed its scientific director.
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Postfach 110543 06019 Halle, Germany
In 1845, Heinrich Beyrich became a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 136 Irving St, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Heinrich Beyrich was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1884.
Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prospekt 14, Moscow, Russia, 119991
From 1876, Heinrich Beyrich was a corresponding member of the Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Sciences).
geologist palaeontologist scientist teacher
Heinrich E. Beyrich was born on August 31, 1815, into a substantial old Berlin merchant family.
After completing his secondary education Beyrich entered Berlin University (now Humboldt University of Berlin) at the age of sixteen in order to study the natural sciences, especially mineralogy under Christian Samuel Weiss. In 1834 he transferred to the University of Bonn. Where Goldfuss inspired him to specialize in palaeontology. Geology and palaeontology were his major interests throughout most of his life.
Before and after completing his studies Beyrich wandered through much of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy in order to add to his knowledge of geology and palaeontology. In the course of his travels, he met a number of eminent geologists and palaeontologists, including Peter Merian, Agassiz, and Studer in Switzerland and Élie de Beaumont, Deshayes, and Brongniart in Paris. He had been recommended to these men by Leopold von Buch and Alexander von Humboldt.
Beyrich received the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Berlin University (now Humboldt University of Berlin) in 1837 with a Latin dissertation dealing with the goniatites of the Rhenish Schiefergebirge. His choice of topic was greatly influenced by Buch.
In 1841 Beyrich was appointed privatdozent at Berlin University (now Humboldt University of Berlin), where he spent the rest of his life, holding a wide range of academic and civil service posts. In 1846 he was appointed associate professor, and in 1865 he became full professor. He was made custodian of the geological collections of the Prussian Mining Administration in 1855, and from 1857 he taught mining students.
In 1842 Beyrich was commissioned by the Prussian Mining Administration to make a geological survey of Silesia. His findings were published in 1844 as "Über die Entwickelung des Flötzgebirges in Schlesien," a masterpiece that combines clear presentation, acute perception, and thoroughness. The work established Beyrich’s reputation as a geologist and stratigrapher; its most important chapters deal with Paleozoic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary strata, as well as the tectonic structures of the area. The investigation comparing the malm strata in Poland (Wieluń, Krakow) and in Moravia (Štramberk, Mikulov, Brno), with the Upper Jurassic in southern France and northern Italy, and the clarification of certain stratigraphic problems of the Mesozoic and Tertiary formations in the Carpathians are a continuation of his Silesian studies.
Beyrich’s explorations of the north German Tertiary formations were of particular importance. They started around 1847 and occupied him for most of his life, although during his last years he published little on the subject. The most important work on these explorations is "Die Conchylien des norddeutschen Tertiärgebirges" (1852 - 1855), which remained unfinished. The result of this paleontological study was a classification of the north German Tertiary ("Über den Zusammenhang der norddeutschen Tertiärbildungen…, 1855); its best-known result is the conception of an independent Oligocene interpolated between Lyell’s Eocene and Miocene. The Oligocene, the north German counterpart of the Belgian Tongrian and the Rupelian, was first mentioned in 1854 and briefly defined in "Über die Stellung der hessischen Tertiärbildungen." Ever since, the Oligocene, has occupied its established place in the stratigraphy of the Tertiary.
In his treatise of 1855, Beyrich describes the classification and extension of the north German Tertiary strata. He points out that in Belgium the Tongrian stage immediately follows the Upper Eocene, whereas in the large adjoining sections to the northeast and east there is no Eocene and the north German Tertiary strata cover the older pre-Tertiary strata in transgressive deposits.
Beyrich’s studies resulted in a subdivision of the Oligocene into Lower, Middle, and Upper Oligocene. He defined the marine sands of Egeln, near Magdeburg, as Lower Oligocene (i.e., Lower Tongrian); the septarian clay of the Brandenburg region and the sands of the Stettin area connected to the latter’s facies by lateral transition as Middle Oligocene (Rupelian); and the so-called Sternberg rocks and the sedimentary rocks of the same period in central Germany as Upper Oligocene.
Some minor details of Beyrich’s concepts have been changed, but his initial theory has been retained in principle. Even today his definition the Oligocene inspires a flood of discussions and treatises. Beyrich also investigated stratigraphic problems of the Paleozoic in Germany. In 1865 he published a classification of the Permian (Continental Rothliegende [ i.e., Lower Permian] and marine Zechstein [i.e., Upper Permian] on the southern edge of the Harz Mountains. Beyrich then applied his paleontological knowledge to the clarification of the difficult and tectonically complicated conditions of the Devonian in the Harz Mountains.
Beyrich further defended the division of the Carboniferous in Germany into an older marine system (Carboniferous limestone and culm, respectively) and a younger system (with coal-bearing strata) on several occasions. He was especially interested, too, in comparing the development of the Triassic system in Germany with the Alpine Triassic system. He obtained data primarily by the paleontological findings from the Middle Triassic system (i.e., Muschelkalk) of Upper Silesia.
Geological cartography constitutes a large part of Beyrich’s scientific work, beginning with his fieldwork in Silesia in 1842. In the 1860’s he mapped the Harz Mountains, their northern and southern foothills, and the vicinity of Magdeburg. After that Beyrich emerged as the organizer and coordinator of the geological mapping operations in Prussia and Thuringia., for which he was officially commissioned in 1867 by the Prussian government.
One of Beyrich’s most effective, organizational accomplishments was the introduction of the 1: 25,000 topographic map as the basis for geological mapping in Prussia. The other German geological surveys, and those of some foreign countries, adopted this scale.
The main part of Beyrich’s work, reflected in his published papers, concerned, studies in palaeontology and biostratigraphy. More than half of his total of 205 publications are devoted to this subject. His doctoral thesis dealt with paleontological stratigraphy, in that it treated the Devonian goniatites of the Rhenish Schiefergebirge and their stratigraphic distribution. This part of his scientific work is significant not only in scope but also in diversity. There are many groups of individual or multiple fossil representatives of the animal kingdom that were treated by Beyrich. Among them are Mammalia, Stegocephalia, Pisces, Cystoidea, Crinoidea, Echinoidea, Graptolitoidea, Trilobita, Phyllopoda, Cephalopoda, Gastropoda, Pelecypoda, and Brachiopoda; he also investigated corals, sponges, and trace fossils. He dealt with paleobotanical subjects in a number of short papers on Tertiary and Carboniferous plants.
Nevertheless, Beyrich left few purely paleozoological works, Of these, mention should be made of his papers on the Muschelkalk Crinoidea (1857, 1871), Which had been suggested by Johannes Müller’s classic studies on the living Pentacrinus. In addition to a precise and thorough description of the Crinoidea of the German Muschelkalk, which were then little known, Beyrich furnished important information on the organization of the crinoidean skeleton. Thus he was the first to demonstrate the canals in the plates of the crinoid cup and to discuss the symmetrical principles in the cup structure and their taxonomic value.
In his treatise "Über einige Cephalopoden aus dem Muschelkalk der Alpen" (1866) Beyrich made the first attempt to establish connections between Triassic and Jurassic ammonites. This work also contains the first approaches to the taxonomic classification of the later ammonites and their evolutionary relations.
In "Conchylien des norddeutschen Tertiärgebirges" Beyrich split the rather largely classified genera of the older conchologists into subdivisions, so that their relationships could be better understood. Furthermore, such smaller groups were apt to offer more reliable material in discussions of stratigraphic and paleobiogeographic problems. On the other hand, Beyrich was an enemy of unfounded and wanton classification of species.
Beyrich also investigated vertebrates. His main work in this field is on the catarrhine monkey Mesopithecus pentelici of the Lower Pliocene at Pikermi, near Athens. He established its difference from the hominoid Hylobates and its close relationship to the cynomorph Semnopithecus. He also produced memoranda on the Oligocene Anthracotherium, the Pilocene mastodons and rhinoceroses, the Pleistocene elephants and rhinoceroses, the Triassic labyrinthodonts, the Devonian Pterichthyodes and Coccosteidae, the Permian Acanthodes, the Triassic ganoid Tholodus, and the Tertiary selachian Carcharodon.
Beyrich also occupied himself for years with the Cretaceous fauna between Cairo and Suez; he received the materials from the explorer Georg Schweinfurth. He also treated the Himalayan ammonite fauna of the Triassic era, and demonstrated that the Triassic contained not only elements of the European Upper Triassic fauna but also of the Middle Triassic.
Heinrich Ernst Beyrichdied on July 9, 1896, in Berlin, Germany.
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , Germany
1845
German Geological Society , Germany
1848 - 1895
Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences , Germany
1853
Königliche Geologische Landesanstalt und Bergakademie , Germany
1873
Russia , Russian Academy of Sciences
1876
American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States
1884
Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory , Germany
1895
Museum of Natural History
1873