Background
Pierre Berthier was born on July 3, 1782, in Nemours, Ile-de-France, France.
Palaiseau, Île-de-France, France
Pierre Berthier entered the École Polytechnique in Paris in 1798, where he studied under Monge and Berthollet. In 1801, he graduated from the École Polytechnique.
Paris, Île-de-France, France
On completing his course, Pierre Berthier entered the École des Mines in 1801, and was one of the few students who moved with the school to Montier. In 1806, Berthollet graduated from the École des Mines.
France
Pierre Berthier became a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1828.
6th arrondissement, Paris, Île-de-France, France
In 1825, Pierre Berthier became a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
Berlin, Germany
Pierre Berthier was a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
geologist scientist teacher author
Pierre Berthier was born on July 3, 1782, in Nemours, Ile-de-France, France.
Berthier entered the École Polytechnique in Paris (now in Palaiseau) in 1798, where he studied under Monge and Berthollet. On completing his course, he entered the École des Mines in 1801, and was one of the few students who moved with the school to Montier. In 1806, Berthollet graduated from the École des Mines.
In 1806, Berthier was called to the newly completed central laboratory of the Board of Mines. In 1816, after additional field experience, he was appointed professor of assaying and chief of the laboratory at the École des Mines.
Even after he retired in 1848, Berthier maintained his laboratory there. He was paralyzed in 1851 as a result of a street accident.
Berthier also published more than 150 papers on a wide variety of scientific subjects. Most appeared in Annales de chimie and Annales des mines, with later papers in Erdmann’s Journal, Liebig’s Annalen, and the Quarterly Journal of Science. He analyzed kaolin, pioneered in locating deposits of native phosphates for use in agriculture, analyzed dozens of minerals and metalliferous ores, and discovered several new mineral species, including bauxite and Berthierite. Berthier is credited with knowing, before Mitscherlich’s work on isomorphism, that substances that are chemically different may have the same crystalline form and may even cocrystallize.
Berthier put forth no new concepts, preferring instead to add to man’s stock of chemical and mineralogical facts. His well-known Traite des essais par la voie séche was widely used by mineralogists and mining engineers because his analytical procedures were simple, relatively accurate, and practical. Berthier maintained a lifelong interest in plant chemistry, and his analyses of plant constituents received some notice, but his importance lies in what he added to French geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy.
Pierre Berthier died on August 24, 1861, in Paris, Ile-de-France, France.
Pierre Berthier was a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.